


As Hard As Steel (As Bold As Iron)

by bandwidthlimit, happypugfics



Series: Supercorp Marvel AU [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Actually Iron-Maiden, F/F, IronMan!Lena, Smut, The Marvel AU, it's going down for real, smut chapter 6, smut chapter 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:42:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 91,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandwidthlimit/pseuds/bandwidthlimit, https://archiveofourown.org/users/happypugfics/pseuds/happypugfics
Summary: “Are those fucking battery cables?” The curse slipped past her lips with incredulity. What sort of hack surgeon would attach her to a battery?Her eyes tracked the cables, which looked like they had been pulled straight out of an engine, and followed it to an honest to god car battery. It was covered in grease, and the small patches of labels she could see were emblazoned with a garish green.Lena brought her free hand up to pat along the front of the bandages, pressing as gently as she could manage to gauge the extent of the damage. She hissed in pain as she reached her sternum, and then her fingers took a sickening dip along the battery cable and she realized they were embedded in whatever wound was currently covered.“Sam, what the hell did they do to me?”-OR-The Marvel AU
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Series: Supercorp Marvel AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975600
Comments: 182
Kudos: 666
Collections: Gays in Earth 38, Gold Tier Gays





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Clanty, our beta reader. You're the bomb digity

A dull throb started behind her eyes, causing Lena to turn away from the large windows behind her desk and back to the empty whiteness of her office. Distantly, she could hear her secretary on the phone in the entryway, with any luck canceling the dinner with her mother she was obligated to attend. A slight breeze from the filtered air conditioning fluttered the magazine flopped open on her keyboard, a brief distraction from the many meetings she would need to attend prior to her departure.

****Trouble in the Middle East!**** the cover had announced, ****pg 37****. She had been flipping through the pages with little interest, largely ignoring the rest of the content. 

Why wouldn’t she? She already knew what they’d printed about her.

But, she paused, lingering on _trouble_. There was always some sort of trouble, wasn’t there. Always a need. It was why she did what she did, why she pushed Luthor Corp to higher heights, steered them away from weapons manufacturing and toward clean energy, toward medical advancements, toward anything that would separate her image from that of her father.

Lionel had died not long after she’d joined the Luthors, leaving behind a stoic Lillian to take care of Lex and Lena. Lillian never faltered, continued to hold the company together even while her children fell apart. Lex suffered the worst. He threw himself into his studies, determined to take his fathers place and lead them to greatness.

Or so he said. By the time Lena was accomplished enough to take a position in Research and Development, Lex was guiding the company in only one direction - weapons and government contracts. 

It had taken years after Lex cracked to bring the company in a different direction. Years of hostile board meetings, years of arguments about her fathers ‘vision’, years of charity galas, donations, smiles with layers of meaning. Even still, after all of her sweat and tears, here she was, emblazoned across CatCo magazine, sandwiched between ****Trouble in the Middle East!**** and ****7 Signs to Leave Your Man****.

The throb behind her eyes increased, and Lena groped for the intercom on her desk phone. “Kara,” she croaked, “find me some Aspirin.”

Kara jumped some in her seat at the sudden request and fumbled for the button to respond, "Y-yes Miss Luthor. One second, Miss Luthor!" She slid her chair back from her desk and pulled open her second drawer. It opened up to a well kept pharmacy of medicine that Lena usually asked for so it took no time at all to locate the Aspirin. 

Kara dolled out two into her hand then stopped, thinking, then shook out another one to make it three. Better safe than sorry. With three more big meetings still on the books today, not to mention the dinner with Lillian, Lena would probably need all the help she could get.

"Better make it four…" Kara bit her lip and fished out one last pill. She placed them in a small paper cup and then hurried to the water stand down the hall and filled one of those cups with some water. She raced back, grabbed the pills and steadied the cup with the water in her grasp before she went over to Miss Luthor's door.

Kara knocked softly to announce herself and then entered the office. "I've got your Aspirin, Miss Luthor," she said and set both cups down onto the front of her desk within Lena's reach. She assumed her usual 'standby' stance, hands behind her back, feet six inches apart, eyes attentive while she waited. Kara broke it to push her glasses up a little more before asking, "will that be all?" Her eyes started on Lena but glanced to her keyboard where the magazine lay open.

_Oh_. That was probably what did her in. Kara knew her boss probably wouldn't have liked the article when she placed the issue on her desk this morning. She had skimmed through it first of course, to make sure it did Lena justice. It hadn't been terrible, but it had certainly played up more of her... extravagant tendencies than was true. A magazine article just didn't seem like proper journalism, at least not to Kara.

The four white pills rattled in the cup as Lena threw them back with a grimace. After a delicate sip of water, she glanced at her waiting assistant. 

Kara had been with her for a little under a year, and from the first day had been attentive, if a little clumsy. If Lena put a little extra into the office supply budget because of a few broken staplers, neither of them said a word about it. 

She realized she had been silent a beat too long when Kara started to twitch. Lena bit back a tense sigh, and flipped the magazine in front of her closed with a slap. “Cancel dinner with my mother. Tell her whatever you need to, meetings ran long, someone called in a bomb threat, I don’t care. Make it abundantly clear I will not be in attendance. Confirm the jet for the morning, and check in with R and D that the prototypes are ready for transport. I don’t want any surprises at the release tomorrow.”

She glanced at the calendar still blaring on her computer screen, “And move my six thirty up to five. I know that will cut the budget meeting close, but the sooner this day is over the better.”

At the onslaught of new instructions Kara pulled out a notepad from her back pocket and took the pen from behind her ear and began to scribble like a mad woman all while nodding. "Yes ma'am, of course ma'am. Consider it already done, Miss Luthor," Kara said adamantly and finished writing. She looked back up to Lena and took in a breath. Nothing else immediately came up so she nodded again and left the office. 

Kara shut Lena's door quietly, being mindful of her headache and sat down at her desk. The blonde took a moment to just try and center herself and prepare for battle as it were. Lillian was never kind on the phone. On the contrary, the woman made sure Kara knew her place and did her best to try and get the blonde to make Lena understand hers, but Kara would take the brunt of it if it would spare Lena some ache.

Meetings first. Yes, she would definitely do the meetings first. Kara called everyone she needed to and got it all arranged just as she knew Lena wanted. Then she set in on Lillian. She steeled herself and her ears and made the call. It was thirty seconds of polite conversation and thirty _minutes_ of yelling till Kara thought her ears would bleed.

Once Lillian had finally begrudgingly accepted the absence of her daughter at dinner, Kara hung up, compiled a quick and clean new list and printed it out. Kara went over to the printer and picked up Lena's new schedule then went and knocked on her door quietly again. "New schedule set, Miss Luthor."

Lena hummed noncommittally, hardly glancing up from the spreadsheet now present on her monitor. It took her a moment to recognize the new schedule in front of her, and a moment longer to realize how much time had passed. She only had about twenty minutes before her marathon of meetings began, and what had been the beginning of a terrible headache was now a barely noticeable throb.

Reaching for her glass of water from earlier, Lena regarded Kara again. “You deserve a medal for all the gymnastics I make you do to avoid my mother,” she hummed, tapping the now empty glass gently against her lower lip. “Or a raise. Or both. I’ll have HR work on it once this launch is complete.”

" _Oh_ , that's not necessary–I mean, you really don't have to, ma'am. Thank you though. It's no trouble, really," Kara said insistently. Her hands wrung a little behind her back before she looked away and saw the clock.

"Miss Luthor, your next meeting is in fifteen minutes. I put the files in the blue folder," Kara nodded to the stack of folders on her desk, color coded for details and papers for each meeting.

Lena barely managed to contain her wry smile, knowing full well her mother was plenty of trouble. Rather than argue the point, she gave her assistant a small nod of dismissal. "Thank you, Kara."

The next three hours passed in a blur of expensive suits and bad cologne. By the end of it, the aching behind her eyes was back full force, and no amount of aspirin would help it. Forcing herself to move with grace rather than trudge, shoulders sloped, Lena made her way back to her office, where she knew her decanter of whiskey sat, glinting gently in fluorescent lighting.

Fluorescent lighting that immediately shot pain through her head. Lena groaned under her breath, well aware that her assistant would hear her through the open office door. "Call the car. Is everything confirmed for the flight to Istanbul tomorrow?"

Kara shot up from her desk, nearly stumbling over a computer cord, but managed to ring the valet desk downstairs to get Miss Luthor's car to the front. She quickly collected the documents she had been working on and grabbed both her large planner and her small one she had done up for Lena's trip.

"Yes!" She called when she had been silent for a little too long. She stopped halfway to Lena's office and turned back around to go back to her desk. She wasn't usually so disorganized but she had been very busy getting ready for the next few days in advance. The ship would need to be kept up to snuff without the captain, as it were. Kara knew she definitely wasn't the first mate in this scenario, but she could do her best. The blonde grabbed two migraine pills from the bottle and brought those as well.

"Yes, sorry, Miss Luthor. Everything is ready. The jet leaves at six fifteen am from JFK. The flight is a little under ten hours and you should arrive in Istanbul, Turkey around four pm Eastern Standard Time, eleven pm in Turkey. A car will be waiting to take you to your hotel. Your meeting the next day will not be until ten am. Your passport is in your top drawer, along with a copy of your itinerary and planner I made up for you," Kara nodded to the desk expectantly.

" _Oh_ , and for your head. I know how the meetings get you with all those lights," The blonde said quickly, almost like an afterthought, and placed the cup with two pills on the desk in front of Lena.

"Mm, my hero," Lena reached for the medication immediately, looking up at Kara through her eyelashes. "What would I ever do without you?" 

She gave her assistant no time to answer, pulling her itinerary and passport from the drawer Kara had indicated. She flipped through the itinerary idly, and the planner after it. “Thank you, Kara. That’ll be all for tonight. I’ll see you when I get back.” 

Kara practically radiated under the praise, beaming from ear to ear with a big lopsided grin. "Thank you Le–Miss Luthor. I hope you have an enjoyable and successful trip," Kara said after faltering through her initial mistake. Her cheeks started to pinken so she pushed up her glasses and gave a vigorous nod before she turned and went back to her desk to pack up for the night. Just as she finished putting things into her bag she got the ping that Lena’s car was around front.

"Your car is ready, Miss Luthor!" She alerted, just loud enough to be heard through the open door but hopefully not so loud as to further her boss's worsening headache. Kara signed out and collected her things–a great stack of loose papers and folders in addition to her bag full of documents and her work laptop for home– and headed to the elevator. 

Once Kara was home, safe in her two bedroom apartment she shared with her sister, she let out a big sigh. All the paperwork was dropped off onto her desk in the shared living room. The lights had all been off which told Kara it was another long night for Alex, who wasn't home. It meant a long night for Kara worrying about her. New York City didn't exactly have the lowest crime rate as far as big cities went but at least it wasn't Chicago. Still, it had its fair share of weirdos. Kara had read about that blind devil vigilante enough to not want to walk around Hell's Kitchen on her own anyhow. She didn't see how Alex could be in the force. Kara had never felt brave enough for anything like that.

– ** **Istanbul, Turkey**** –

It was an uneventful flight, and as soon as the plane touched down, Lena was off running. Eleven in Turkey still meant early enough in New York, so rather than address the jetlag she was sure to have, Lena pushed through and virtually attended to the details of an upcoming charity event, and what looked to be an incident report from the labs.

She’d have to arrange another safety briefing. She shot off a quick email to Kara to put it on the calendar for when she returned. 

Glancing at the itinerary that she’d thrown haphazardly across the desk in her suite, Lena allowed herself a little laugh. There, in bold, under arrival, was a time stamped, ****12:00 AM: SLEEP****.

Well, with a directive like that, how could she refuse?

Even still, sleep came fitfully, and Lena found herself pacing the pretentious hotel suite long before her ten am meeting. Room service provided decent enough coffee, and breakfast that was palatable. By nine, Lena had foregone pacing her rooms and found her way downstairs to the lobby, where she was greeted by several investors.

Another hour of elbow rubbing and ignoring the way one man in particular kept eyeing her figure, it was time to leave. She was sure her itinerary had some hopeful message emblazoned across it, but it sat unattended in her suite upstairs. They made an interesting caravan on their way out, Lena in a crisp suit, a deep blue with subtle pinstriping, and four male investors ranging in size, from Mustafa Dogan, who stood a solid six inches shorter than everyone else, to Emir Acar, the original investor for the project.

Emir had become almost a friend throughout the process, introducing the project to the others. Without him, there would be no market for these panels, and Lena was pleased when they ended up in the same car to take them out of the city.

"My dear, do not fidget so. Everything will go smoothly and everyone will love it. I have said so. Would I lie to you?" The olive skinned man asked as he brushed off something on the pocket of his tan colored suit. It helped his purple tie and pocket square to _pop_ to the eye. And Emir did appreciate a good pocket square.

"We are on time. In fact, we are going to be early," he smiled, showing some of his teeth and gestured out the window to the passing scenery.

Lena arched a brow at him in response, turning her attention to the window. They were well out of the city now, and should be approaching the launch site soon. The small suitcase next to her bumped her leg gently as they navigated a pothole, containing the panels that would take up her next few hours.

“I’m not so concerned people won’t love it,” she said finally, “After all, I designed it myself.”

The car slowed as it approached their location, a large, flat expanse of land with a small elevated stage roughly in the middle. To one side, there was a smattering of metal folding chairs lined up in a way that reminded Lena absurdly of high school bleachers. She’d never even seen a high school stadium, and yet.

It didn’t take long to set up, once they started. That was the glory of these panels, Lena mused. They were small, easy to transport, but even easier to deploy. They were her latest endeavor in her effort to move the company away from weapons manufacturing, and they would bring sustainable energy to underserved populations, starting right here in Turkey. 

The rest of the investors arrived, bringing with them their assistants and a handful of press. Lena felt the familiar spike of pre-launch nerves, and took a steadying breath. Emir would take the stage first, she reminded herself, and give his own introduction, reminding them of his own investment in the project. She watched him do his own preparations, the purple pocket square flashing color as he moved. She let herself tune out through his speech, her face a polite mask while he spoke. 

It was only when Emir turned, announcing her name, that Lena smiled widely, stepping up onto the stage to meet him at the center. They exchanged a brief handshake before Lena took his place at the temporary podium. “Good morning, everyone,” she greeted into the microphone, “Thank you so much for making the trek out with me today.” She offered a practiced grin, like making the trip out was some big joke they had all shared in. 

“I won’t bore you with the engineering details,” she heard the murmur of translators and the ripple of laughter through the crowd, “Just know that these solar panels are going to change the reality of renewable energy, and I cannot think of a better place to start that revolution than here in Istanbul.”

The rest of the speech came as easy as breathing, once she settled into the rhythm. With the press of a button, the panels behind her began to expand, setting themselves up and spreading across the open field. “With easy set up and mobility, these panels could be placed on every rooftop, harvesting and storing more energy than before. Each panel has extended capacity, able to combat the duck curve more than before. We can harness the energy production of midday and utilise the consumption of the early evening, resulting in less loss and less stress on the existing power grid.”

She had to admit it went well, and somewhere during the proceeding congratulations, she found time to flash Emir a grateful smile. She hadn’t been CEO of Luthor Corp long, Lex had only been in care for eighteen months, and while she had found pushing the company in a new direction fairly straightforward (she had simply refused any other option the board provided her), it hadn’t exactly been easy finding investors who were willing to believe that Luthor Corp could do anything but produce bombs.

But here they were, with solar panels glinting in the mediterranian sun, drinking champagne.

It was with a little bit of a buzz that Lena found herself back in the car with Emir, the solar panel suitcase again bumping jovially against her leg as they drove back toward the city. 

"That was, as usual, quite the presentation," Emir smiled politely, though it didn't quite fully reach his eyes. He took one of his fingers and rubbed idley on the top of his mustache, keeping his eyes from looking out the window and focused on his companion instead. 

"Everyone was abuzz with you. You have spent my investment well and the world will be better for it."

His foot tapped to the radio tune a little off beat. He was too quick. Emir brought his hands back into his lap and he clasped them calmly, "How are you feeling, my dear?"

Lena smiled loosely at him, the world soft around the edges from the champagne. It was funny, really. She didn’t remember drinking enough to feel this relaxed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, an alarm bell rang, but she ignored it.

"Like…" the word felt funny in her mouth, and her smile turned slowly down into a frown. Everything felt muted, actions slow, words thick and sticky like molasses. She opened her mouth to speak again, but nothing came out. The fuzziness at the edges of her vision crowded in, and Lena found herself slumping down in her seat, the edge of the suitcase digging uncomfortably now into her calf.

The already dim atmosphere in the back of the car darkened further, til all she could see was the purple of Emir's pocket square, mocking her until her vision went black. 

_____

Her head was killing her.

How much had she had to drink? Her mouth tasted sour, and her eyes felt like sandpaper. 

Distantly, she heard voices, but they were far off. Another room, maybe.

"Kara!" Lena called weakly, "Bring me aspirin…"

The words trailed off, and everything went dark again.

_____

There was nothing to be done for the mildew smell in the air. The slow _drip drip_ of water from the ceiling down to the damp floor was continuous. Soft humming harsh fluorescent lighting. The distant sound of machines echoed through cavernous paths, distorted and sounding like monsters from another world. The scent of gasoline permeated the breathable air. Hushed tones got louder till the shriek of a steel door quieted them.

And Kara didn’t come.

“ _İşte orada. Büyük Lena Luthor. Kardeşini dinlemeliydi_ ,” a familiar voice came after, one Lena had heard many times before, but not in the language he used now. The sound of footsteps, closer and closer, the soft _squish_ as they stepped through some water.

“ _Onu uyandır. Yapılacak işimiz var_ ,” the voice said again, closer now. 

A calloused hand gave a rough duo of pats to Lena’s cheek before the same hand took her by the chin roughly.

“Time to wake up, my dear. There are things to be done, _tatlı şey,_ ” Emir spoke calmly with his same tone from the car. One of false sweetness. He stood in the badly lit, dingy cavern room still as immaculately dressed as Lena had last seen him, purple pocket square still blazingly bright, even in the dizzying light.

Three armed thugs stood at attention behind him with an implication that there were yet more behind the now shut steel door that locked them all in the underground room together. One behind Lena kicked her chair roughly when the CEO did not respond right away.

Lena jerked her chin out of Emir’s hand and bit back a hiss at the searing pain racing through the back of her skull. Mind racing, she tried to take stock of her situation - she could feel rough cords around her ankles, binding each one to the front legs of the chair. Her shoulders burned with the strain of being pulled tight behind her back, and with a small tug, she realized they were bound to the back of the chair as well.

Jutting her chin out proudly, Lena curled her lip in a sneer. “I will do nothing for you.”

“I believe that you will change your mind, with time,” Emir responded in his same calm fashion. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, as if getting off a layer of dust and then shifted in front of her, “You see, my dear, I have invested a pretty penny in you and your little game of playing savior of the world. Only, I have grown tiresome, and my own investors are… _sabırsız_. Eh, impatient,” he translated with a wave of his hand. “We,” he paused and thought better of it, “ _I_ , desire the old Luthor Corp. The Luthor Corp that was unafraid of weaponized innovation. The Luthor Corp that struck fear into the hearts of society that their beautiful creations could turn a triple profit over one Luthor missile. _My_ investor wants something _new_. Something… _yıkıcı._ Something devastating. And you are going to make it for us, _tatlı şey._ You are going to do this,” Emir faced her then, fully, hands loose in front of him with his fingertips touching, “Or we will kill your brother.”

Instantly, her mind flashed to the last time she’d seen Lex, in a very private institution upstate. He’d been thin, harangued, and had looked very little like the loving brother who had raised her. He’d spoken nonstop about weaponry, about his new designs, about his plans for new contracts as soon as he got out.

But he would probably never leave, according to his doctors. He’d made little improvement, and was actively working against his treatments.

Even still, she hoped, maybe one day, she would have her brother again.

The idea of making any sort of weapon, especially for someone who had so blatantly betrayed her, sent chills up Lena’s spine. But, she couldn’t risk Lex.

Her head dropped, defeated. Her arms burned, but it was nothing compared to the shame creeping up her throat.

“I’ll need materials.”

"I thought you'd say that," Emir smiled fondly down at Lena now, features softening some after his threatening demeanor beforehand. "You will have all that you require. We actually have some blueprints for you, which you will receive when the time comes," the olive skinned man motioned with a hand for the guard behind Lena to do something.

Suddenly a black sack went over Lena's head and was secured right enough to not be pulled away. The man roughly untied her and another came to hold her alongside him. Emir barked some more orders in his native tongue and soon Lena was dragged through the complex.

Wet uneven flooring proved an obstacle for the blind, but turn after turn the guards brought Lena forward at their urgent pace until some brighter light would show through the mask. 

"Take it off," Emir stated and when the guards did so, the view opened up into a hoarded stockpile of old Luthor Corp weaponry and tech that had been discontinued since Lena's rise to the metaphorical throne.

"Your supplies. Tell us what you need and you may have it," Emir said and then motioned to a desk nearby that held a series of blueprints for a weapon design. One rather detailed image just appeared to be a cube with complicated equations around it while another just looked like a hammer and had crudely scribbled notes along the margins in a strange language.

Rubbing at her wrists, Lena glanced over the blueprints, brows furrowing at the unfamiliar characters she found there. It was no language she recognized. She glanced at Emir.

She knew him to be a shrewd, intelligent businessman, but he was no engineer, or he'd have already procured the equipment he needed. Maybe that was something she could use to her advantage. Lena flipped through the first few blueprints to buy some time, mind whirling. 

"I'll need welding equipment," she finally said, "And protective gear, unless you want me blind before I finish. I'll need precision tools, at least two full sets." She glanced around the cave like room, noting the clearly labeled Luthor Corp crates in the corner, no doubt filled with previous merchandise.

Something to work with, at least.

"Get me a soldering station, several thickness of high quality wire, and a Perrier." The last she delivered with her trademark smirk. If she was going to be manipulated, the least she could do was make it inconvenient.

– ** **New York City, NY, USA**** –

It had been roughly twenty-four hours since the call, give or take a few thirty minute breakdowns here and there. Still longer since Lena Luthor had been found to be missing, period. What was that statistic for the first twenty-four hours? They were crucial? That time had already come and gone for Lena and Kara hadn't even _known_.

She'd felt sick immediately. Sicker still after the initial press conference. She was Lena Luthor's personal assistant. Surely she had _some_ information? Only she didn't. The speech had been hopeful, brief, and to the point. Lena would have loved it. Kara had steeled herself for it, stoic in front of the flashing lights and if anyone who spoke after her noticed the finger grip indents in the metal podium, they didn't say so.

Some of the board members had done their fair share of speculation and now of course it was all over the media circuit. _Everywhere_. Some of Lena's more loyal group were panicking. Their entire investment in Luthor Corp missing–gone without a trace. Lillian had been surprisingly quiet as of yet.

Those who weren't, well, Kara hadn't seen them _openly_ celebrating but they didn't seem all that worried to her. In fact, several of them had already tried to stop operations, but Kara wouldn't let them. She kept all of Lena's departments running just the way she would if her boss was still on vacation and not potentially dead. Kara swallowed a little hard at the thought of it. Still, Kara knew Lena would probably rather happily go to her grave than let the old war mongers who used to lick her father's boots stop her dream of turning Luthor Corp around.

If the board pushed any harder Kara didn't know if she would be able to stop them but she would do her damnedest. It had been the longest day of her life. Surely things were being done, search parties sent out but to Kara, it felt like nothing was being done. Time was standing still. She knew what Alex would say if she asked her again.

_"Kara, I don't know what you want me to do. It's not like I have jurisdiction in Turkey. Everything possible is being done, I'm sure."_

Imaginary Alex didn't give her much hope. What she really wanted to do was ask her sister if Lucy had heard anything, but that would go over about as well as a brick to the face. Kara felt hopeless. Worse than hopeless. She felt useless. She couldn't do anything but sit there and worry about the woman she–her boss. Kara didn't know what to do. All she could do was just sit on the couch and stare at the tv screen as they played the news segment over again, no new information.

A key rattled in the door behind the couch as Alex pushed her way into their shared apartment. She took in the downward slope of Kara’s shoulders, and the frazzled state of her hair, like she had been constantly running her hands through it all day. Dropping her keys in the bowl by the door, and her bag heavily onto the hook, Alex tried to keep in her worried sigh.

This was what she had been worried about all day. She’d known there was no chance she would walk into her normal, happy sister, but this seemed almost beyond the realm of ‘my boss has been missing with no contact for a day.’

If she had a boss like Lena Luthor, Alex thought she might have welcomed the reprieve of a quick kidnapping.

If a quick kidnapping was even what this was.

“Hey, Kar,” she approached the couch almost cautiously, putting a concerned hand on Kara’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Kara jumped, so tuned in to the news that she hadn't even registered Alex come home. Kara sucked in a breath and forced a smile before she turned her head to look back up at her sister, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," the blonde said, trying out the little lie. She reached for the remote and changed the channel so it wouldn't be on the news anymore. 

Kara rubbed her nose then and got off the couch, cheeks hurting a little from forcing the smile so much, "How was work? I ordered some Chinese already. Hope that's okay. I didn't feel like cooking."

Alex muttered something about Kara never feeling like cooking, but ultimately let it go. She could see how fake the smile on Kara’s face was, stretching across her lips like plastic. “Work was fine,” she shrugged away the shift, deciding then and there not to mention to Kara how much the force was buzzing about Lena’s disappearance. Too many people were happy to see her unaccounted for. 

There had been a lot of attention on Luthor Corp when Lex Luthor suffered a mental breakdown, raving on his very public platform about creating weapons to protect the nation from outsiders. Alex knew that Lena had turned the company to more humanitarian efforts, but it didn’t take even a page two Google search to find Lex’s rhetoric. 

Without asking Kara, she pulled down two wine glasses and a bottle of red. Kara wasn’t much of a drinker, but Alex figured trying to hold down a corporate fort was occasion enough for a good Merlot.

Or decent. If she remembered right, it was only a fifteen dollar bottle.

“You sure you’re alright, Kara? You don’t have to lie to me.”

Kara sighed and dropped her smile. It was probably harder to pretend nothing was wrong than if she was just honest with her sister. She knew Alex wasn't _terribly_ fond of Lena. She did keep Kara on late hours sometimes. Long hours. _Every_ hour a few days when big projects were near finished.

"Okay, no," Kara breathed and sat down at the counter, "I'm just really worried," she started and then it all came pouring out, "I mean you know what they say about the first twenty-four hours in a missing persons case, Alex. You've had to deal with them before. And Lena's first missing twenty-four hours passed before we even knew she was missing. Before _I_ even knew. It took an entire day for the hotel staff to realize she hadn't checked out and probably longer still for people to contact the office and then that whole entire press release was a fiasco and the board is already trying to undermine _everything_ she's done! Her mother doesn't even care, Alex! Not even a peep since I had to let her know and you know that woman has _a lot_ of things to say every other time! And I…" Kara stopped to actually breathe and she looked down at her hands. She had bent the top of the chair. 

The blonde put her hands in her lap quietly and looked at Alex, "Sorry, I'm just worked up. And worried…"

Alex nodded along while Kara spoke, pouring them both a more than generous glass of wine. She slid Kara’s to her, giving her a very pointed look as she raised her own glass to her lips. She let the silence carry until they’d both had a sip, setting her glass down on the countertop with a dull thunk.

“I think you’re allowed to be worked up, she is your boss.” Alex paused as the buzzer rang out through the apartment, signalling the arrival of the take out that Kara ordered. Rather than make Kara do it, Alex crossed back to the front door and rang down to the doorman to send the delivery up.

When the knock came on the door, Alex accepted and signed for their meal, unsurprised to take possession of what was at least three entrees and two orders of potstickers. “You better have ordered me cream cheese wontons,” she told Kara, giving the driver a decent tip and closing the door without preamble. 

"When have I ever forgotten your wontons?" Kara asked pointedly, eyeing Alex with an actual genuine smile this time. She took a short sip of her wine, refraining from making a weird face. She'd much rather have some sort of sugary cola, but the evening did seem to warrant alcohol. Kara would take one for the team.

"Uhm… _before_ you eat them though," Kara tapped her middle finger on the glass as she held it, "I have a favor…?"

“Anything,” Alex said without hesitation. 

Kara figured she would say that, but she didn't know what she was about to ask.

"So, full disclosure, I've called the embassy like a hundred times. Probably two hundred times," Kara started out quickly, as if she just spat it out would make the ask less high, "Can you _please_ see if you can call Lucy?"

Kara had anticipated a sour face from her sister and she wasn't disappointed, "Look! Before you say no–please just ask her if she knows anything? She's high enough she would have heard about this and they're giving me nothing! I know you don't want to talk to her and she probably doesn't want to talk to you but maybe if you just said _I_ was asking she would...you know, help for old times sake or something?! Please, Alex."

Alex groaned dramatically, dropping hard onto the other stool at the counter top. “When am I going to learn to find out what the favor is _before_ agreeing to help?” she grumbled, unloading the take out bags with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

She pushed the first order of potstickers toward Kara, keeping the cream cheese wontons well out of her sisters reach. “You know she won’t tell me anything, Kara. We haven’t talked in years, and the last time… the last time didn’t exactly go great, okay?” Guilt immediately flooded her as Kara’s face crumpled, “But I’ll try. For you.”

"Believe it or not, Alex," Kara said, right before shoving a whole potsticker into her mouth. It took her a little longer than anticipated to chew and she made an apologetic look while she did so before swallowing hard. "I know what I'm asking. That's why I feel so guilty about it. But I _have_ to know what happened to her, Alex. I've got to. We have to find her…" the following sentence being 'I don't know what I would do if we didn't,' but Kara kept it in.

Alex paused with a wonton halfway to her mouth, eyebrows inching slowly toward her hairline. “I’ll call Lucy in the morning,” she promised, “but Kar, this seems like a little more than just being worried about your boss.”

"Thank you," Kara said, ignoring the other half of Alex's sentence on purpose and opened her other carton of food and started eating. When she swallowed a few bites in silence she could still feel Alex's eyes on her so she sighed, " _Adrenaline_." She used their conversational safe word and said it flatly, and that was that. It wasn't something she was ready to talk about yet. She hadn't even fully talked about it with herself yet. Granted this wasn't _usually_ the kind of situation she used it for, but it would count.

Hands up in surrender, Alex filed it away in a “definitely bring up later” file. “Okay, _adrenaline._ ”


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and the comments! We are glad that you are excited and that excites us too!

The neverending drip of water from the closed off hallway was beginning to get on her very last nerve. It was incessant, almost as frustrating as the knowledge that she would have to create something, unless she wanted to risk Emir hurting Lex. 

It was an impossible position to be in. 

Flat on her back, Lena stared up at the damp stone ceiling above her. She wondered idly if this was anything like being buried alive.

Gradually, her eyes slid to the pile of supplies in the corner. They had been dropped unceremoniously there several hours before, and Lena had a brief encounter with someone she could only describe as a  _ thug _ that she had pretended to be largely oblivious to. It had taken them the better part of twenty four hours to bring her anything, largely, she thought, due to the small case of perrier she could see peeking out from under a pile of protective gear.

The thought made her smile.

Now, however, with everything she needed amassed in one corner of the… dare she call it a room? Lena had little excuse not to produce something, which left her with only a few options.

Option one, she could build them the bomb they were so clearly hoping for. Obviously, not something she was inclined to do. Option two, she could build them nothing, endangering not only herself, but also Lex. Again, unacceptable. Option three, she could build them a bomb that didn’t work. 

It was the most viable solution she could think of, given her circumstances.

First things first: open up that crate of Luthor Corp tech and see what was inside. Lena dragged herself over to it, finding herself unwilling to see what devices of Lex’s Emir had decided were worthy to keep on hand. A crowbar sat near the crate, leaning innocuously against the wall. For a brief moment, she imagined destroying the box and its contents without looking inside, and when she picked up the bar, it was a hard image to resist.

In the end, she opened the box without damage to the interior, and felt the weight of the myriad of weapons inside settle onto her shoulders.

She remembered most of them from their infancy, remembered assisting in the lab while they developed the sonic grenades in front of her, and recalled the delicacy required to assemble the splinter bombs. Her fingers twitched anxiously around the crowbar, and she let it drop with a ringing clang next to her.

Firmly, Lena turned her back to the weapons and instead regarded the pile of supplies. With determination, she started to set up to create the most elaborate dud she could manage. 

_____

There was a clattering outside the door, and Lena paused, tools in hand. She had shed the jacket of her suit what felt like years ago, but her shirtsleeves were still down to her wrists and if they were coming back in here she wasn’t going into this unarmed. Not this time. Palming a thin flat head screwdriver, she slipped it up her sleeve just as the door swung wide open.

A body was flung forcibly inside, barely clearing the doors inswing. A shout in what Lena now recognized as Turkish, and the door slammed heavily shut.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Lena could feel the weight of the screwdriver still in her sleeve, and deliberately slid it back down to her hand, approaching the body in front of her cautiously. It groaned, rolling from its side onto hands and knees, before raising a badly bruised face to look around the room.

“Oh, holy shit,” they groaned, voice rough with pain. “It’s you.”

Lena glanced around the room, like they could have been speaking to anyone else. “Me?”

"Yes," they spit out some blood and wiped their mouth off as they stood, revealing themselves to be another woman. She wore a now ripped and tattered black suit, white shirt stained with blood from her mouth and nose.

"You're Lena Luthor. We've been looking everywhere for you," she said and cleared her throat then ran a hand through roughed up brown hair, "I'm Agent Arias with the DSS. I'm from the embassy. We've had parties scouring all over for you. They ambushed my team, but hey, lucky me, I found you." Her humor was sour and she staggered over to sit in one of Lena's chairs, "I guess you can call me Sam."

Lena set the screwdriver down on her makeshift desk, half relieved and half furious at the woman in front of her. "I suppose I should be grateful anyone was looking for me at all," she said lowly, turning back to the partly assembled shell on the workspace.

"Well, Sam," she tried not to spit the womans name out, but trust her luck to have the only agent at the embassy dumb enough to get caught searching for her. "You've found me. What next?"

"Glad to see you're as stuck up as the news at home says," Sam responded dryly and glanced around the room. She took note of the three security cameras inside, watching them. She also turned around and gave the steel door a once over, and the air vent cut into the ceiling about ten or more feet out of reach.

_ What next indeed _ …"Well, I assume we either work together to come up with an escape plan or some way to get a signal out, or wait for more soldiers and agents to stumble across us... wherever it is that we  _ are _ ," Sam conclude, eyes squinting as she took a closer look at Lena's work table, "what have they got you doing for them?"

The CEO offered a sly smile, “What they think I’m doing for them, you mean.” She pointed using a screwdriver, indicating the dummy drive she had installed before Sam had been so gracelessly deposited into the room. “They want me to develop new weaponry for them. What they’ll receive is enough wiring to fool an idiot, and enough of a harddrive to give an empty shell of a bomb some direction.”"

"You're making a–" Sam cut off and looked at the cameras again before standing up, " _ a fake bomb _ ?" She whispered and walked over to Lena, even more curious now.

"What happens when they find out it's a dud?" The agent questioned, feeling a little critical of Lena's plan despite only having just gotten here. "You make it for them and then they let you go? Have you thought beyond making this?"

“I imagine they’ll kill me,” Lena said succinctly, “with any luck, quickly.” 

She caught Sam’s disbelieving look, and sighed heavily. She dropped the screwdriver with a loud clatter, and found herself glancing toward the cameras, though she knew they weren’t wired for audio. “I will not be manipulated into continuing my brother's work of destroying the planet. I have worked too hard, and too long to backslide over one little threat to my life.”

"One  _ little _ threat?" Sam gawked and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. The nerve. The literal nerve. "Then why build it at all if you're just willing and waiting for them to kill you? Why go through the whole charade instead of flat out refusing?"

“They threatened my brother, Agent Arias, and while he may not be the pinnacle of society, I will not risk his life.” Lena mimicked the other woman’s posture, staring at her with cold consideration.

With any luck, her fake bomb would be enough for Emir to lose his temper. He had never been the sort of man to let something go easily, and her only goal now was to send him into enough of a rage that keeping her alive would be infuriating. Without her, Luthor Corp would crumble, its stocks worthless, and her majority shares would be distributed away from those who would see them reap destruction. 

"Not to be rude, oh fuck it, yeah, to be a little rude, don't you think making these guys a  _ fake _ bomb, might just make them angry enough to not only kill you, but your brother too? Or just your brother?" Sam scoffed, "you might not care about your own life, Miss Luthor, but for some inexplicable reason  _ other _ people do. Someone from your office has been calling the embassy almost every fucking hour. A lot of your board members have spoken very highly about you on the news, saying you're missed. There's a fucking shrine building up outside of Luthor Corp. Even some impassioned blonde had a whole fifteen minute speech about you in the initial press release. And you're treating it like garbage. Not to mention that of all of us out searching for you. God forbid you have some sympathy, or just basic decency beyond your own selfishness."

It was not the first time someone had called her selfish.

Hell, it wasn’t even the fifteenth, but it was the first time in a long time that someone had gotten close enough to her to deliver such an impassioned tear down. 

Lena was almost impressed. 

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” she brushed it off, turning back to the shell of a bomb in front of her. “I can’t imagine anyone would waste their time calling every hour.”

Except… she had listened to the tiny voice of her mother scream down the line at Kara for far longer than she ever would have tolerated herself. And even restaurants that didn’t do delivery cowed under the weight of Kara’s relentless pressure. And perhaps, the presence of Excedrin and Aspirin before she even knew she needed it spoke to how much someone might care about her without her noticing. 

The metal in front of her blurred as moisture gathered in her eyes, Lena forcibly blinked it away. 

“A shrine?” she finally asked, voice small. 

"Yeah," Sam nodded, arms still crossed and face a little more apologetic than it had been previous, "God knows why. But why would I lie? What motivation do I have for it? It seems you've inspired people, Lena Luthor. Luthor Corp does  _ good _ work, now. People would be remiss to see that change. Not everyone is a power hungry asshole terrorist who wants weapons." 

The agent stepped closer and put a hand on Lena's back, gently and easily moved if it were unaccepted, "People care about you. Do you really want to let them down?"

Sam’s words from earlier flashed to mind.  _ An impassioned blonde _ . Suddenly, the idea of not seeing Kara again was unbearable, even if all she could get out was a thank you. 

“I suppose not,” she finally admitted, though she quirked a brow at the agent next to her, “Perhaps I ought to have you address my board of directors, I imagine most of them would be classified as ‘power hungry assholes.’ Even terrorists, if you squint.”

That earned Lena a real laugh from Sam and she put her hands on her hips, "You know what, Miss Luthor? If you can get both of us out of here in one piece, I'll be happy to."

_____

Lena was losing track of time, though Sam informed her she’d been missing for three full days now. Emir had begun to question her process on the bomb, and Sam continued to question her ability to build a convincing dud. 

Sam seemed completely unfazed by Lena’s withering glares, and Lena found herself adding what Sam called “a little boom.”

In reality, it would be a small scale explosion, nothing like the splinter bombs. With any luck, harmless. 

She was just screwing on the last panel when the heavy door clanged inward again.

Emir presented himself, finely dressed as always and accompanied by his usual men. The door shut again in the same fashion as he came to stand before the two women. "Lena, Lena, Lena...where is my bomb? We have provided you with supplies," he gestured to them, "an assistant even," he smirked some.

Lena could see Sam's hands ball into fists before putting them behind her back.

"You've had plenty of time. So I ask again... _ where _ is my bomb?"

Lena gave one last quarter turn to the screw, appearing as unaffected as she would have been had this been a scheduled appointment in her climate controlled office. “Your timing is as impeccable as always, Emir,” she said smoothly, stepping back from the makeshift workbench. “I’ve just finished it.”

Emir's eyes narrowed as he looked over Lena's workspace, seeing the contraption she had created. It looked like a bomb and so by that measure he was pleased but it was just so…

"It is miniscule," he complained almost immediately and stepped closer, his man following him, assault rifle held firm. He looked it over with a distinct frown and waved his hand dismissively, "I expected more from you, Luthor. What am I to do with this? Blow a pot hole in the road?  _ No _ . You will do better. You forget our arrangement."

A smile curled Lena’s lips, both coy and cruel. “Have you ever seen a pothole in Brooklyn, Emir? I’m sure it would be the largest hole you’ve ever seen.” She cast a glance at Sam, who was staring at her with pleading eyes, and gave a false laugh. “The casing may be small, but it improves the mobility. This will do just as much damage as the L245.”

The L245 had been one of Lex’s last creations before he had been institutionalized. It had leveled more than three square miles on it’s last deployment, a feat that Lena very firmly put out of her mind. 

"You would be cheeky with me?" Emir said flatly, trying to find comfort in some of the things Lena said, but even the L245 had looked the part. This looked...well, it didn't look like much. "No, I want bigger. I want better. I know what you are capable of, thanks to our long  _ partnership _ ," his lips fell into a thin line that curled into a smile, "this is not your best. You will give me something, like what was designed," he gestured to the other table where the blueprints laid under piles of scraps, "stop stalling, or I will grow impatient. And I cannot promise how long your brother will stay comfortable in his second floor room of Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital in upstate New York."

Emir turned from her, disappointed, and headed back towards the door, shouting in Turkish for it to be opened. Two of his men followed but the third stopped with a hand motion from Emir. The thug smirked and held his gun in one hand and back handed the shell of Lena's creation, sending it to the floor.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Lena was opening her mouth to snarl that she would make him nothing else when the bomb slid off the edge of the desk. She felt herself lurch for it before better sense took over and she jerked herself away, knowing that when it hit the ground it would -

It knocked the wind straight out of her, the explosion pushed the desk over onto its side, protecting the blue prints and some of the smaller tools. Lena felt her back hit the wall, and searing pain ripped across her front.

Her delirious mind took a moment to lament her favorite suit before darkness took over. 

" _ LENA?! _ "

  
  


**–New York City, NY, USA–**

  
  


“Yeah, thanks for - Jesus, no, Luce, why do you always have to - you know what, forget it. Can you just lose my number so I don’t have to change it again? Oh for fu-”

Alex chucked her phone in the direction of the couch, not altogether caring if it landed softly or not. 

“Can’t believe she’s still on that bullshit,” she grumbled, rounding the kitchen counter to pull out something to drink from the fridge. “Kara!” She called, knowing her volume was unnecessary for her sister to hear her. 

Kara came out of the bathroom, tucking her already half tucked button up into her belted slacks in an effort for some normalcy in getting ready for work. Alex was irritated, that was for sure. The walls weren't quite so thick that she couldn't hear the half screamed conversation from her room.

"I take it the conversation with Lucy did not go well?" The blonde asked tentatively, coming around into the kitchen. She was clearly eager and hopeful for news, but she didn't want to push it. Especially not when that one vein in Alex's neck was poking out.

“You could say that,” Alex snarked, pulling out a bottle of water. “She still thinks I have her first three seasons of  _ Friends _ that she lost in AIT. I don’t even like that show!”

She swallowed most of the bottle in the first pull, barely resisting the urge to crumple it in her first. “But, she did confirm that the Luthor jet landed in Istanbul, and the solar panel event went through without a hitch. After that, though, there was no trace of her. Lena never made it back to the hotel.”

"Oh...to be fair, I  _ might _ have those…" Kara cringed a little and supplied an awkward smile as she went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of orange juice. It was disappointing news for sure, but it did feel at least a little relieving to know the facts. 

"Thank you, Alex. I'm sorry I made you do that," Kara sighed and pulled out some frozen waffles from the freezer and popped them into the toaster, eating one early while it was still frozen. It was clear she was disheartened by the news. No matter how many times she called the embassy they didn't tell her anything. And today she would have to go to battle with the board again with no new information.

“Kara, are you kidding me!” This time Alex did squeeze the water bottle, a little of its contents fell onto the counter. “You’re welcome, but seriously! Call Lucy and tell her you have those stupid DVDs. I really don’t want to change my number.”

Alex’s expression softened once she noticed Kara’s furrowed brow and deep frown. “Hey, keep your chin up, okay? I’ll call you if I hear anything at work.”

"Thanks," Kara answered softly and pulled her two warmed waffles out and wrapped them in a napkin for her to move them to the island counter with her orange juice.

"Have a good day okay? I promise I'll call Lucy," she smiled weakly to her sister, trying to let her words boost her morale. Still...it had been three days now. Three  _ very _ long days.

– **Unknown, Turkey** –

The first thing Lena was aware of was pain. It pushed its way into her subconscious, and it made every piece of input that came after it grating and loud. 

First pain, and then...

That fucking dripping. 

Lena groaned, trying to roll over. The pain went from a background ache to a burning pain across her chest. She sucked in a sharp breath and forced her eyes open, orienting herself in the damp, rockwalled room. 

Her first instinct was to sit up, but the pain in her chest kept her flat on her back. Instead, she turned her head, noticing immediately that the desk had been put back in its rightful position. The walls around it were noticeably darker, and if Lena squinted past the itching dryness in her eyes, she could see a lighter, roughly body shaped patch close to the ground.

“Sam?” she croaked, pushing herself up onto her elbows with a pained groan. Distantly, she wondered what the damage was to her chest.

"Oh thank God," Sam sighed heavily, clearly sounding relieved and soon she was right within Lena's line of sight. She had a bandage on her forehead and upper arm. The woman's hands came up to rest on Lena's shoulders, "Hey, don't move too much...uhm…

The agent hadn't ever been at a loss for words in the two days they had spent every waking moment together so this was an unusual turn of behavior. "Lena, what do you remember?"

With Sam in her line of sight, Lena lowered herself gingerly down off her elbows. Her mind whirled. The last thing she remembered was… mocking Emir, which was probably not her best move, she admitted. And then…

“I remember trying to catch the bomb,” she said slowly, “and then…” her head hurt, she realized, and she shut her eyes against the concerned wrinkle on Sam’s forehead. “A lot of light. And that brings us to the present.”

"More than I anticipated…" Sam said, eyebrows raised in surprise before she bit her lip. Like a bandaid. "You… _ didn't _ catch it," the agent began, brow still furrowed. "It exploded...in a pretty surprisingly grand fashion so, good job," Sam half grinned. Perhaps that had been in poor taste.

"My understanding of the incident is...it worked. A little too well. You got blown back. I did. Hell, the henchman fuck who knocked it off is dead…" Sam rubbed along the bandage on her head, "You almost died. Literally. They had to call in...Uhm, some kind of on hand surgeon, and not the professional kind, Lena. You've got shrapnel in your chest and…" Sam nodded down to her for Lena to look.

Just judging by the look on Sam’s face, Lena was certain she didn’t want to see it. She steeled herself, knowing she had to do it eventually. She stuck an arm out to have Sam help her struggle into a seated position, and took in a deep breath, looking down at her chest.

She very suddenly wished she hadn’t. Her shirt was in dirty tatters, barely hanging on to her shoulders. The entirety of her torso was wrapped in grimy bandages, winding around her ribs and covering what looked like...

“Are those fucking battery cables?” The curse slipped past her lips with incredulity. What sort of hack surgeon would attach her to a battery? 

Her eyes tracked the cables, which looked like they had been pulled straight out of an engine, and followed it to an honest to god car battery. It was covered in grease, and the small patches of labels she could see were emblazoned with a garish green. 

Lena brought her free hand up to pat along the front of the bandages, pressing as gently as she could manage to gauge the extent of the damage. She hissed in pain as she reached her sternum, and then her fingers took a sickening dip along the battery cable and she realized they were embedded in whatever wound was currently covered.

“Sam, what the hell did they do to me?”

"As far as I can tell... they've attached you to a car battery," Sam said, a sympathetic smile on her face, knowing her explanation was definitely _ not _ an explanation. "I was out. They had to stitch me too. I probably look like Frankenstein's monster under these…" Sam decided to shut her mouth. She definitely wasn't helping.

"They didn't exactly explain to me when they brought you back in. You've been asleep nearly all day. I think I heard something about a magnet, but they weren't exactly speaking loudly and the doctor's dialect was hard to hear. And I was mostly disoriented still," Sam pulled up a chair and sat across from Lena, "it's keeping you alive, whatever he did."

“It’s shrapnel,” Lena whispered, suddenly dizzy. “I had to use a splinter bomb for parts, they don’t… they don’t typically leave people alive, let’s put it that way.” She forced her hands back down to her lap to keep from fidgeting with the bandages. “The way they work, they burrow in deep until the units connect and then they rip their way back out. It’s gruesome.” 

Lena couldn’t help but laugh a little now, low and thick with repressed emotion. “They were one of our best sellers.”

Sam sighed heavily and sat back a little more in her chair, just processing and trying to think. It still felt like when she concentrated the room began to spin so she gave up again. "I'm so sorry Lena. I shouldn't have pushed you to make it more convincing."

Thunking her head back against the wall behind her, Lena felt one hot tear track down her cheek. Viciously, she swiped her hand across her face and started to struggle up. “Don’t be sorry,” she bit out, holding back a whine of pain as the battery cables pulled. “We’re done moping. How are your hands? Steady?”

"I think I can manage...why? You need to be taking it easy," Sam said and stood up as Lena did, hands out to help her if she needed.

She swayed as she stood, and if it weren’t for Sam’s steadying hands, Lena was sure she would have landed right back on the damp ground. “Forget taking it easy,” she growled, letting Sam hover near her as she labored her way to the charred desk. “I’m not going to be connected to a godforsaken battery for the rest of my life, and we are getting out of here.”

The crate she dropped her weight onto creaked in protest, but Lena paid it no mind, instead reaching for the nearest blueprint and flipping it over to expose the untouched paper on the back. She snatched for a pen, one that looked maybe a little melted, but blessedly, still wrote. 

She drew from memory, the schematic as etched into her mind as the details of her company. Within a few minutes, she had a roughly drawn arc reactor in front of her. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, blazing on before Sam could answer. “It’s a prototype arc reactor. My research and development team is working on a larger version to power my building, but one this size… it should generate enough energy to keep the shrapnel away from my heart.”

"We're going to make  _ that _ ?" The agent asked, wide eyed with not only awe, but a healthy dose of concern as well, "in here? How?" Sam couldn't fathom it. 

Lena smiled, shark like. “With steady hands.”

_____

“Don’t drop it,” Lena snapped crossly, hovering over Sam’s shoulder while she navigated the soldering cup. 

They had spent the better part of two days breaking down the weapons from around the room, harvesting materials. She could hear Emir’s men making reports on the other side of the door, and her giving status updates. Her grasp of the language was improving, and she knew the reports Emir was receiving would keep them from another surprise visit for at least a few days.

She watched the pliers in Sam’s hand give a wiggle, and she felt herself tense in frustration. 

Her own hands were too shaky, between the pain and her lack of mobility due to the battery. If it were up to her, she would have assembled the arc reactor without help, and as it was, she had it mostly assembled. They were onto the very last ring before she could bind it together with the thin copper wire. “We only get one shot at this,” she reminded unnecessarily. 

"I will once again remind the Volkswagen behind me that I am being as careful as I can. I'm doing my  _ best _ , Lena," Sam said, frustrated and on edge. She knew how important this was. She knew they had one chance. And it was all on  _ her _ hands for heaven's sake. She pulled the pliers away to take a breath and recenter herself. After a beat, she started again, going gently and carefully and following Lena's every instruction to the best of her capabilities.

"Okay, done. Now what?"

Lena let out her breath in one big woosh, all of her frustration flooding out of her as she looked at the perfect ring nestled into the core of the reactor. “Now we just need to assemble the casing and install it.”

"Great, genius. That explains so much. I instantly know what to do," Sam quipped, but in truth, she was in awe of what they had done. What she had helped them do. Never in her life would she imagine being able to make something like this, even with instructions. It is as incredible, given the circumstances.

"Sorry... I'm ready. Walk me through it. Let's get you a new heart, tin man."

“Do you only speak in pop culture references?” Lena huffed, shifting herself and her battery over to make room for Sam. She pointed out where they would need to start with the wire, and as Sam started to wrap, she coached her through soldering the ends, each wrapped section three quarters of an inch from the other. 

When the last piece was soldered into place, Lena gave Sam a grim smile. “Okay. Now for installation.” 

"Are you absolutely certain that this will work? Because I honest to God don't know if I could hook that battery back up to you if it doesn't," Sam said honestly and stared hard at Lena, forcing the eye contact. "You better not pass out on me either. I can't do this by myself."

“We don’t have a lot of options,” Lena pointed out, “But it should work.” She tried to sound reassuring, already reaching as far as she could behind herself to undo the bindings. “I’ll disconnect the cables, and you’ll have to connect the wires for me and just drop it into place. Can you do that?”

Sam sucked in a breath and steeled herself, then nodded, "I can. Walk me through it?" She reached out and helped Lena start to unwrap the shitty bandaging she had already tried to fix once before.

Lena steeled herself as the bandages came free, exposing the very clearly not medical grade cables that protruded from her chest. Around them, the wound was an angry red, and she tried hard to put thoughts of infection out of her mind. So long as they could keep the shards from reaching her heart, everything else could be dealt with later.

“Okay, here we go,” she muttered, reaching in to separate the cables from the wiring attached to the magnet. When the first came free, she noticed the fine tremor in her hands as she moved onto the second. 

They had to be fast, and precise. Sam couldn’t fumble the wires. 

The second cable came free. “Get the reactor, there are two wires on the bottom, you’ll need to attach each one to…” Lena’s voice wavered, and she gestured vaguely at the opening in her chest. 

"Alright– _ shit _ –okay," Sam swallowed hard and carefully took up the reactor, ring in one hand and the wires in the other, "Lay back so I can fucking see. Oh god…"

The agent tried not to be antsy as she waited for Lena to listen and then she angled herself a little better so she could see further into...the cylindrical metal plating that kept the magnet in place on Lena's chest. "Fuck, here I go," Sam said and as carefully as she could, hands somehow unwavering in this moment, hooked the first wire as instructed and with great care, hooked the second. Sam didn't relax until she pulled her hand all the way back out, fingertips sticky with a substance the brunette would rather not think about.

She held the reactor steady above the opening before placing it and twisting it into place. She looked to Lena for instruction, "Feeling alright? Still with me?"

“Yeah,” Lena ignored the shake to her voice, listening to the arc reactor whir to life somewhere beneath her chin. She watched as it lit up Sam’s face, and felt a surge of relief. 

It worked. She hadn’t built an arc reactor since the first prototype before taking over as CEO. 

“Okay,” she sat up, relieved to move without the snag of glorified jumper cables. “Now on to phase two.” She spread another set of blueprints out for Sam to see.

"Lena, what the _ fuck _ is that?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at us on tumblr:
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	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!!!
> 
> Thank you for all the love!

Lena Luthor had been missing for a week. An entire seven days, full stop. The media still occasionally buzzed about it. The shrine outside of Luthor Corp still grew. Only, the news talked about it less. The shrine grew at a slower pace. The flowers withered without water and they died.

Kara's hopes were withering too, unwatered and parched for any sign, any news, any indication that her boss was alive and well somewhere. Anywhere.

At least she had kept funding funneled out of weapons projects and manufacturing. The board had steamrolled her, stopping it for most of Lena's humanitarian projects except for a few which they thought might still manage to make them an obscene amount of money. It made Kara feel like a failure overall, to have lost the war this way, but at least they weren't making weapons...yet. It was honestly probably only a matter of time till they came for her job as well. 

She was Lena's personal assistant, only...where was Lena? Kara knew she was only still around because she was useful and no one had yet taken up to the plate to fill her shoes. She was at the top by default...but not for long. The blonde could feel an unnerving sense of dread creeping up on her, slowly surrounding her before it struck, whatever it was that the universe had in store.

Kara knew Alex could tell it was really wearing on her, but what could she do? She still called the embassy every chance she had, desperate for new information.  _ Any _ information. She called Lucy, who was grateful for having finally found her DVDs, but who Kara also felt was tired of being pestered as well. Her heart ached, and she knew why.

Kara cried herself to sleep most nights. She felt like a foolish child. Honestly, who fell in love with their  _ boss _ ? It was probably the worst scenario possible and Kara felt stupid, just  _ so _ stupid for having let it happen. Lena barely knew she existed, if only for planning and for minor medicinal emergencies. Nothing said 'I love you' back quite like "Kara, have the car pulled around." Still, Kara couldn't fathom giving up. Not yet. Not even if all she got for her efforts was "Thank you, Kara."

The doors to the elevator pinged the same cheery ping they always did, and moments later, the sharp click of heels echoed down the empty hallway. Lillian Luthor marched down the hallway like she owned it, perfectly put together in a light gray suit. Her lip curled ever so slightly as she approached Kara’s desk, taking in the blonde’s scattered appearance and cluttered workspace.

“Have you started the arrangements?” Lillian asked coldly, barely pausing at Kara’s desk before plowing straight into Lena’s office.

The universe pulled out it's worst today apparently. Kara shot up from her desk, surprised by the  _ very _ unexpected visit of the she-devil herself.

"Arrangements?!" She asked and nearly tripped over her chair in her haste to follow Lillian Luthor.

"Ms. Luthor, you can't go–Lillian?! What arrangements?" Kara half shouted as she followed the frightening woman into Lena's office. She hadn't allowed anyone in there except some agents from the department of security trying to see if there were any clues in Lena's work. There hadn't been.

Lillian settled herself in the chair behind Lena’s desk, crossing one leg over the other. She leveled a look at Kara that was designed to make her feel three inches tall, “The funeral arrangements, of course. Don’t think I haven’t seen your emotionally charged speeches regarding my daughter. If I didn’t know any better, Miss Danvers, I’d think you had more than a paycheck riding on her return. As it is, Lena has been missing a week, and it’s time to face the facts.”

Kara shouldn't have been surprised by the cold ruthless nature of Lena's mother, but she supposed some part of her had hoped that maybe at least a little part of her, however miniscule, held  _ some _ love for her daughter. It seemed to Kara she was wrong. Her stance had grown a little defensive without realizing it, arms tucked in to herself, hands worrying in front of her. Her blood also felt superheated, like an electrical charge had gone straight through her.

Kara ignored Lillian's jab and didn't stand down, "That  _ doesn't _ mean she won't be found.  _ Alive _ ," the blonde emphasized. She wanted to say Lena was a genius. She could find some way to get back, to be found, to point to where she was... _ but she hadn't yet _ . Kara felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Lillian wasn't right. She wouldn't believe it, "There's not even a body. It's premature–"

“Your faith in Lena is misplaced, Miss Danvers.” Lillian began pulling things out of the bag she’d brought in with her, “We’ll need to make sure the event is well publicized, I’m sure Lena had some PR flunky she preferred, you can start there. I already have a headstone being prepared for the plot next to her father, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

Kara wanted to cry but she didn't. She would not break down in front of this monster of a woman. Kara knew her faith was not misplaced. There was no one more capable to have it placed in, in fact and Kara was determined to go to her own grave believing it. 

"Lena doesn't want some huge publicized funeral, Lillian. She wants something small and intimate. It doesn't need to be covered at all!"

“What Lena wanted,” Lillian’s voice was clipped, and she regarded Kara coldly, “No longer matters, as she is not with us. And if you’d like to remain a part of this company, I’d suggest you get started on those funeral arrangements, before you find yourself one of the faceless masses.”

Did she lose her job here and now standing up to this harpy or did she do her best to protect what little of Lena remained as best she could? Kara's choice was clear. The fact that without this job she and Alex wouldn't be able to afford their apartment had nothing to do with it.

"Yes, Ms. Luthor," Kara said tritely, keeping her emotions even as she left the office to go back to her desk. Out of Lillian's stone gaze, Kara gripped the edge of her desk, breathing fast, trying to think things through and calm down. She had a lot of work to do and she didn't suspect she had very long at all to do it. The blonde sat in her desk chair, still seething with emotions and reached for the cord to turn on her desk light. The bulb burst.

_____

_ “Kara, what’s going on? There was some sort of announcement about a funeral? Did I miss something?” _ Alex’s voice sounded thin and worried through the little cell phone speaker.

She had been watching Kara struggle more and more the last few days. Lena’s disappearance was really wearing down on her, and each consecutive day, Kara looked a little bit worse.

"Yeah, a whole lot of something," Kara quipped back, still in the office even though it was late and Lillian had abandoned her new territory of Lena's office hours ago. "Lillian showed up–you know, Lena's mother–and started telling me to make these absolutely ridiculous funeral arrangements. Four news stations, every paper in town. God, Lena's going to hate it. And word through the work vine is that witch has been made temporary CEO of Luthor Corp. If Lena is dead and already in a grave, she's rolling in it _. _ " 

“ _ That seems a little excessive, _ ” Alex agreed, “ _ But, Kar… it’s been a week, I don’t want to… I mean, have you considered that maybe she isn’t coming back? _ ”

"She's coming back, Alex," Kara said sharply and put her phone down a little too hard. Alex would hear it clatter a bit on her end, but she hadn't hung up. Kara was running her hands through her hair again, like the action would hold herself together. She felt like she was fraying at the ends, like an old rag doll whose seams were bursting open.

She picked up her cellphone carefully this time and took a breath, "I don't want to talk about it, Alex. _ Adrenaline _ , okay _? _ " She had been saying more and more often this week, shutting Alex down. She knew it wasn't fair to her sister, but Kara couldn't even bear the thought of Lena not coming home. Not greeting her in the mornings with her itinerary and coffee. Not being praised for her hard work, getting Lena to smile because she had helped her and done a good job. It was unthinkable.

“ _ Kara, _ ” Alex’s voice was hard, but then she sighed heavily. “ _ Fine. Adrenaline. Eventually, Kar, you’re going to have to accept the situation. I know you don’t want to, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you’re going to have to talk about it - soon.” _

There was a muffled voice on the other end of the line, and Alex groaned. “ _ I gotta go. I’m not gonna be home tonight, Wallace asked me to take his shift, so I swapped him for Saturday, Figured we could do a real sisters night. _ ”

Kara smiled. It was small, but it was genuine and the first one she had produced in several days, "Yeah. Yeah, I'd love that. I could use a good sister night. Be safe out there okay _? _ " Kara asked, unable to keep the desperation out of her voice. She really didn't know what she would do if something happened to Alex too. She had been there for as long as Kara could remember. Alex had made growing up with the Danvers' feel...  _ normal. _

“ _ Psh, me? I’m always safe!” _

  
  


**–Unknown, Turkey–**

  
  


The suit, much like the blueprints, came together in stages. 

It was nothing like she would have built in her own labs, with her own supplies, but given the materials she had available to her, Lena allowed herself a twinge of pride as it developed. She found herself thanking Lex's lunacy as she worked. He may have threatened to bomb an immigration hub, but he always preferred quality in his weapons.

Most of the torso was made with iron collected from the guns she had found stashed in Luthor Corp crates when she'd first arrived. The arms and legs were made from the titanium alloy some of the other bombs had been encased in. Since they were already large diameter tubes, she didn't fuss much with them past making them hinge for the joints. It would be about function over fashion, for the first time she could remember. 

While she welded and soldered, outside of the occasional steady hand, Sam tracked footsteps outside the door. She had come in more recently than Lena, and not under the effect of any drugs, and remembered coming down a long hallway, with several turns. She spent hours, ear pressed to the thick steel door, counting the number of steps Emir's men took before their footsteps faded away.

The anxiety of the situation was starting to wear on her. For all the effort Emir had put into getting a surgeon to keep her alive, he wasn't doing a great job of making sure she and Sam got regular meals. It was hard to estimate how long they had been toiling in the dark, but Lena was estimating a week. Probably more.

It was almost time, Lena knew. Their next meal would be coming sometime today, and that would be their only opportunity to get out. It was the only time the door was open.

"It's coming along," Sam said, admiring Lena's work. There hadn't been any footsteps for a while so she knew they had some time before the thugs would be back, "You're sure it'll work? Because if this thing explodes I don't think they'll patch either of us up a second time."

“It’ll work,” Lena stood back, her hands on her hips. It was a little crude, the welding not as neat as she wanted it, but it would get them through the door, down the hall, and with any luck, in the air. 

“It has to be today. Are you ready?”

" _ Hell no _ ," Sam laughed and crossed her arms as she looked between Lena and this rather unconventional metal body suit, "but it's gotta get done. I'm with you, Lena Luthor." Sam held her hand out in the offer of an actual handshake.

Lena felt herself break into a genuine smile, one she hadn’t felt in so long she wasn’t even sure she could still make the expression. She shook Sam’s hand like they were finalizing a long drawn out business deal, and ultimately leapt apart when a loud clang and shouting started from the hall outside.

“It’s now or never,” there was no trace of a smile now, and Lena started immediately toward the suit. It was a struggle to wedge herself inside, and she felt Sam’s hands fumbling as she pulled straps tight at her shoulders and hips. 

She heard the switch at her back flip, and took a shaky breath. “Okay, talk to me. It should be initializing, as soon as it finishes, hit F11.”

Sam was just as nervous but tried to keep her hands steady as she got Lena strapped and secured into the machine. The crude computer it was hooked up to had begun it's processing but it only showed eleven percent. "It's slow.  _ Too _ slow, Lena. What if it doesn't–"

The heavy metal door behind her started to groan as it was opened and Sam had to make a quick decision. She went to collect their food as calmly as she could from the first thug but when he went to hand her the tray she smacked it hip into his face, sending gruel to cover his eyes. He panicked and went to wipe off his face instead of grabbing for his gun. Sam pulled the gun and spun behind him, choking him out with the strap wrapped around his neck. More yelling started up from outside and she pushed her back into the door, getting it to shut. She quickly pulled several of the large boxes to block the door before taking the guards gun for herself and rushed back over to Lena.

"Seventy-three!"

Lena started to fidget in the suit, unable to move it yet without the arc reactor powering it. “It’s gonna work,” she muttered to herself.

It had to, or they were dead. 

“Control 1, then enter, as soon as it loads!” 

More shouting from the other side of the door, and a slam. The crates that Sam had pulled in front shook.

“Come on…” Lena clenched her fists, and felt a sudden pull at her chest as the arc reactor linked into the suit, and suddenly she had  _ mobility.  _ She took one lurching step forward. “Stay behind me,” she told Sam, “As soon as they get through that door, we’re out of here.”

After Sam had pressed the buttons, seeing Lena's suit actually _ move _ was humbling. It was a machine–a crudely built one–but it worked! Sam did as instructed, not too prideful in her ability to not realize she was very vulnerable. She stayed behind Lena and got ready, safety off, and gun up.

After several more lurches, the crates gave way and the door swung open. Guards rushed into the room, all shouting orders. They didn't know what they were in for.

“Here we go,” she muttered, raising her arms and firing. She advanced, the heat from the crude flamethrowers rigged to her arms pressing in on her from all sides. Lena could hear Sam behind her, keeping close. 

They were through the door, and both of them were counting steps under their breath as they pushed forward toward men who could not believe their eyes.

She couldn’t blame them, really. She lumbered down the hallway, taking fire as the guards in front of her realized what was happening. Bullets ricocheted off the iron plating on her front, some of them bouncing back to hit those who’d fired them. Lena grinned, sweat dripping down her back. 

Sam shouted behind her, and Lena swung her arm out wide, catching their assailant in the side of the head. He dropped with a sickening thud, and Lena had a flash of guilt. 

She wouldn’t manufacture weapons, but here she was, potentially killing people.

For her own life, she reminded herself firmly. 

They rounded a corner, the left that Sam had anticipated a few days before. The tunnel in front of them seemed lighter than the one before, and Lena thought for a moment,  _ is that the sun? _

"I think we are almost there!" Sam shouted. A bullet ricocheted off the back of Lena's metal suit and Sam whirled around and shot the guard. He dropped to the ground, most certainly dead. The agent didn't have any qualms over it like Lena. "Keep going! Your back is clear!"

As they moved to press forward, right before the opening, a familiar man in a high fashion suit stood before them with ten or so more guards and he did not look pleased. Emir held a grenade launcher in his hand and he looked smug, "Quite the miraculous contraption, miss Luthor! I don't recall saying you could leave  _ but _ I am pleased with this crude invention of yours! I think I'll have you make me one!"

Lena snarled behind the iron mask of her suit, lip curling in a way that reminded her strongly of her mother. “I will never make anything for you,” she took another heavy footed step forward, fiddling with something on her left arm.

She raised it threateningly, ready to launch the sonic grenade she had loaded into the chamber. “Get out of my way.”

Emir  _ tsked _ with his tongue and shook his head, "You're a bag of spare parts, Lena! Looks like you need another lesson!" He pulled the trigger on the launcher. His thugs began to fire.

With only a split second to react, Lena launched the sonic grenade. It reached its peak arch and exploded, knocking Emir’s grenade back toward him and pushing everything around it back toward the opening to the cave. 

Lena’s ears were ringing with shots fired, and she fumbled forward, catching Emir’s bloodied face in her limited peripheral vision. She was steps from the exit when she turned abruptly, looking for Sam. 

" _ Lena _ , you got to go!" Sam shouted, waving for Lena to keep going with one hand. Her other pressed tightly against her abdomen, blood seeping into the grime stained shirt. One of the ricochets must have caught her. Sam had barely noticed in the adrenaline rush until she started to feel dizzy.

"Hurry up! Get out of here!"

She hesitated, ears still ringing. “No, I can get you out of here!” The suit lurched as she turned around, and Lena could feel the drag on the arc reactor in her chest.

Maybe she could get Sam out, but she couldn’t get them both in the air.

“Sam,” Lena reached up and flipped the face of the mask up, giving the agent on the ground a regretful look. With the mask open, she could hear the men behind her start to stir. She didn’t have a lot of time. “I’m gonna come back for you,” she swore.

" _ No _ !" Sam shouted and staggered over and pushed against Lena's metal machine with her free hand, "I'll be alright! G-go, hurry up! You're going to lose your window!"

Letting herself be pushed, Lena reached up and clanged the metal back down to cover her face. She nodded grimly, and started a slow jog toward the cave entrance. As she approached, one of the gunmen started to stand, and she dropped a heavily plated arm down on his head as she passed.

The sun was blinding as she lumbered out, and Lena found herself grateful for the small amount of shade she had in the suit. But she had to get airborne, she knew. The sun was hot, and even if the suit could fly as fast as she knew it should, she was severely dehydrated. The suit would make it farther than she would.

Without Sam behind her to access the control panel, Lena had to contort herself to manually start the thrusters at her calves. She heard them stutter to life, and felt the initial lift. Panicked, she slapped her hands against the smaller thrusters at her ribs, and finally, the roughly rigged propulsion jets on her forearms. 

By the time they were all active, she was in the air, twisting awkwardly in an effort to stay afloat. Behind her, she could hear the beginnings of shouts as men began to pour from the cave mouth.

“Out of time,” she muttered to herself, the arc reactor at her chest humming with effort. 

With a dramatic kick, she accelerated away, in a direction she could only hope would lead her back to Istanbul. 

_____

  
  


As it turned out, it was not the direction to Istanbul. 

Around the time Lena realized she was headed in the wrong direction, the thrusters at her legs began to sputter, and she found herself rapidly losing altitude. In an effort to correct, she twisted, pointing a hand toward the ground, but all it served to do was send her into an uncoordinated spiral into the sand below her.

The ground was hard beneath her, and Lena groaned, reaching over her head to pull the iron mask off and throw it away from herself. It landed with a clang, and soon, the arms joined it. She struggled to undo the clasps holding her into the chest plate, fighting against the pain in her chest as she fumbled clumsy fingers around the rivets. 

She pushed herself upright, kicking off the heavy legs and squinting in the harsh sunlight. Her own bodyweight felt strange, loose and limber without the constraint of metal around her, and she stumbled forward, eyes on the ground in front of her. 

Lena kept putting one foot in front of the other for as long as she could manage, but eventually, the stress on her body won out, and she collapsed on hot sand and sparse grass.

It might have been hours before the sound of helicopter blades rushed in Lena's ears. It might have only been a few minutes. Either way she could feel her body jostled and moved and lifted. A language,  _ finally _ , that wasn't Turkish, and English mixed in.

"We can't find the aircraft."

"We'll have to come back and look for it later."

"Miss Luthor? Miss Luthor, can you hear us?"

"We're going to get you to a hospital, Miss Luthor. You're safe now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We appreciate all the love and the kudos and comments! Keep them coming!
> 
> Come yell at us on tumblr:
> 
> bandwidthlimit
> 
> happypugstuff


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for skipping a week guys! I was on vacation.
> 
> Hope the wait was worth it!

Alex hummed to herself, off key, while she made the momentous amount of popcorn that Kara would require for a true Danvers Sister Night. The popcorn popped in front of her on the stove, contained by a large glass bowl that they only owned for this purpose. Behind her, the microwave whirred as it melted more butter than was strictly necessary. 

But Alex needed this sister night to be perfect. Kara had been struggling, and had been for two full weeks now. There hadn’t been so much as a whisper of Lena that had been positive. Lillian Luthor had plowed forward with her large, ornate funeral service, to be held the next day, in some garish Catholic church Kara had grumbled about for days.

According to Kara, Lena wasn’t even religious.

The popping in front of her slowed, and Alex reached over to turn off the burner. With great care, mostly because she didn’t want to hear a lecture about a small burn, Alex flipped the bowl and pan over, neatly catching all the popcorn inside. She set the bowl down on a tattered hot pad to cool, and finished it off with the butter.

It was getting frustrating, waiting for Kara to open up. All she seemed to want to talk about was Lena, but as soon as they started to talk, Kara shut down.

Not tonight, though. No, Alex was going to get Kara to talk about it, come hell or high water. 

Kara had left the office on time for once in the past two weeks, per Alex's very strict instructions. For the Danvers Sister Night to be up to its full potential, it needed to start on time. She was trying to look forward to it. She was trying _ so _ hard and doing her best not to think about the funeral the next day. Every minute of it that crept closer, Kara felt a part of her shrink off and die too.

Keys jiggled in the lock and Kara turned the knob and stepped into the apartment, smell of popcorn hitting her full force. It did make her smile and she dropped her keys in the bowl and locked up, leaving her bag by the door.

"Alex, I'm home!" Kara called and moved into the kitchen, eyes trained on the massive bowl of popcorn. She was  _ starving _ . She hadn't really been eating properly all week. It showed a little in her cheeks and the lack of sleep under her eyes, blocked mostly by her tortoise shell glasses.

"What's the movie line up?!"

“Hey,” Alex greeted with a grin, “I figured I’d let you have first pick, but I have the second Mamma Mia, that new animated thing you were talking about the other day, Die Hard, and Taken queued up.”

She snagged the popcorn bowl from the counter before Kara could dig into it, pulling out a bottle of white wine, as well as a Sprite for Kara. 

"Goodness, that should keep me occupied right up until I have to get ready in the morning. We're going to need more popcorn," Kara half smiled and went over to look at their DVDs. She didn't immediately see one that caught her eye so she flicked through their digital library. She could use something stupid funny right about now, "White Chicks?" 

Kara turned to look at Alex as she sat down on the couch and pulled her feet up under her. She spotted the bottle of wine and her sprite and although Alex was thoughtful for grabbing it for her, Kara chewed on her lip, "Can you grab a glass for me? I think it's an alcohol kind of night."

Alex faltered with the bowl half onto the coffee table, giving Kara a surprised look. Then, she nodded, setting everything down and returning to the kitchen, silently thankful that she’d picked up a second bottle of wine. “Sure. Rough day?”

"Rough week," Kara answered without any kind of a smile as she used the remote to get the movie pulled up. She also snuck a few bites of popcorn while Alex was in the kitchen again. "And tomorrow is the big fat cherry on top…"

“You don’t have to go, you know. No one would blame you.” Alex dropped onto the couch next to Kara, bumping their shoulders together gently. 

" _ I _ would blame me," Kara said with a sigh and pushed play. She set the remote on the side of the couch and leaned a little more heavily than normal onto her sister, enjoying the small comfort it brought. It was the one thing in the world right now that felt right to Kara. Everything else seemed to be like some twisted lucid dream, and she was  _ intimately _ familiar with those.

"Nothing about tomorrow is really for Lena at all. If I don't go then nothing will be. I have to go for her," she said it quietly, barely heard over the movie. Kara shoved popcorn into her mouth to stop talking. It was sounding more and more like she had, at least partially, accepted that Lena wasn't coming back.

Wine sloshed a little as Alex pressed a glass into Kara’s hands, mulling over what her sister had said. It was to date the most she had gotten out of Kara in regards to how she was handling the Lena situation, and while Alex felt like maybe she should be happy her sister was finally opening up, the words themselves just made her sad.

“Okay, Kar,” she agreed softly, “I get that. Do you want me to come with you? I can make Wallace take my shift tomorrow.”

"Oh, no, it's okay," Kara said and shook her head but she gave Alex a smile. She even laughed a little at the shenanigans in the movie; however, Kara also took an unusually large drink of wine and didn't even chase it with popcorn. "I know you didn't really like her. Besides, you'd burst into flames if you stepped foot in a church," she teased.

Alex cracked a grin, “I mean, I might singe a little bit, yeah.” She took a sip of her wine, giving her sister a healthy amount of side eye. “Can’t say you won’t crisp a bit tomorrow, either.”

"Only because I'm plotting Lillian's murder," Kara quipped with a roll of her eyes. There was a blush forming on her nose though, but it could be because she didn't usually drink. She didn't want to think about why else she would be burning. That was the whole point of movie night. "Let's just watch the movie? I'm tired talking about it."

“You’re always tired of talking about it, Kara.” Alex sighed, running a hand through her short hair in frustration. “I know that Lena is a sore subject for you, and I get that, I really do, but you’re about to attend her funeral tomorrow and you won’t even admit to me that you care for her beyond her being your boss!”

" _ Adrenaline _ ," Kara said firmly, ignoring her sister and finished her whole glass of wine in one go before reaching for her soda. She really,  _ really _ didn't want to talk about it. She shifted, situating herself so she wasn't leaning on Alex anymore and reached for a blanket and pulled it over her legs.

“ _ Adren - _ Kara, are you kidding me right now!” Alex’s glass thunked hard on the coffee table in front of her. She gave up facing the TV to turn on the cushion and face her sister instead. “This is hurting you, Kar. You’re holding everything in and you won’t  _ talk to me _ -”

Something buzzed by the door, but Alex plowed on, ignoring it.

“I have watched you moon over that woman for almost an entire year, and now you expect me to just pretend you’re not heartbroken that she’s missing?”

The buzzing stopped, only to start again a moment later.

“Do you really expect me to keep letting you cop out of conversations that you know you need to have? Have you even admitted it to yourself yet?”

_ Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. _

Silence. 

And then again, somehow more insistent than before:  _ buzzzzzz. _

Kara just simmered through the entire beration, ready to scream like a finished tea kettle. The lights flickered. And then Alex asked her  _ that _ . Of all things. Kara finally boiled over.

" _ No! _ Okay?!  _ No _ , I haven't. Is that what you wanted?" Kara got off the couch, balling up the blanket and forcefully shoving it into the cushions. Forget movie night. She needed sleep before her hellish day began all over again.

"I'm in  _ l _ ove with my boss, okay? My  _ dead _ boss. It's been two weeks. She's not coming back!" Kara marched herself out of the living room back to the front door to pick up her bag and her phone. The lights flickered again.

"I have to go to some ruse of a funeral tomorrow that isn't even going to honor a  _ single _ of Lena's wishes and pretend that it's okay," Kara shouted this time and wiped her face with the hand that held her phone. It came back wet. When had she started crying?

Her hand started to vibrate from the phone in her hand but she ignored it, storming back over to the couch on her way to her bedroom, "Why process it at all? I won't ever get to see her again? I won't get to tell her! She didn't even notice me anyway, not really. I'm an  _ idiot _ for even letting it happen in the first place!" The lights blinked again.

_ Bzzz. Bzzzzz. Bzzzzz. _

"Jesus  _ fuck— _ WHAT?!" Kara finally answered the phone in an emotional rush, features twisted, upset. 

Kara's bag hit the floor with a  _ thud _ and her knees wobbled for shock.

" _ What?!" _

Kara locked eyes with Alex, chest heaving and almost out of breath, "She's okay... she's  _ okay _ ?!"

The TV  _ cracked _ with a surge that busted the screen. Well that was new.

Alex was glad she had set her wine down when she had. If she’d been holding it while Kara screamed at her, she may have dropped it out of surprise. Or worse, thrown it at her. 

She was even more relieved to not be holding it when Kara answered the phone, because cold white wine did not make for a great clothing accessory. She could barely register the TV behind her, too busy launching herself over the back of the couch to be there for Kara, in case her knees gave out.

“Are you… Lena’s okay?” 

Kara just nodded, still on the phone. "Mhm...yes," her eyes were welling over with tears and she reached for Alex with her free hand. "JFK at nine am. Yes, absolutely. Everything will be ready….mhm. No,  _ thank you _ !" Kara hung up and just stood there for a few seconds. 

Her phone dropped to the ground and Kara threw her arms around Alex with considerable force in a tightly clasped hug. "She's okay! Lena's  _ okay _ !" She was crying again but the lights had gone back to normal.

The hug knocked them back into the door, and Alex let Kara’s weight crumple them down onto the floor. She held her sister tight, rocking them both slightly the way she used to when they were kids. Kara kept murmuring into her shoulder, and Alex was pretty sure it was just  _ Lena’s okay _ , on repeat. 

They stayed there until Alex lost feeling in her feet, and she gently pushed against Kara’s shoulders to get her to sit back. “Tell me everything, Kar.”

Kara laughed lightly and shifted back when Alex pushed her, wiping at her eyes with the palm of her hand. "Sorry…" she sniffed and then also wiped her nose and sat back fully, just trying to breathe.

"They found her in  _ Syria _ . She's coming on a jet tomorrow morning at nine. All they said was she looks rough, but she's okay. That's all that matters…" Kara swallowed hard and took a long look around the room, just trying to calm down and let it all sink in. Her eyes squinted and Kara's head cocked to the side some when she spotted the tv. "Alex... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn't have. I just...I didn't know how to process any of this, I  _ still _ don't."

Alex couldn’t help but laugh, shaking her head. “Well, unfortunately for you, now you’re gonna have to.”

_____

  
  


It was all a little surreal. She had been watching clouds zip by for hours now, but as the jet began its descent, she recognized the busy streets of New York. 

The idea of being surrounded by people made her heart flutter with anxiety, and the arc reactor hummed beneath her chin.

Lena closed her eyes against the view, resting her forehead against the double paned plane window. She still couldn’t entirely believe the suit had worked, that she had gotten out of that cave and was on her way back to her normal life. 

Well, as normal a life as she could have, now that her heart was beating only at the whim of a large magnet. 

After being picked up by the helicopter, she had been admitted to a small hospital in Syria. They had filled her with fluids, but not done much beyond getting her well enough to travel. She would have Kara arrange a visit with her GP once they were on the ground.

Which came up faster than she was anticipating. The wheels touched down and jerked her back into her seat, her fingers leaving deep indents in the armrests as she gripped tight. She didn’t let go until they had coasted to a stop.

Kara watched with bated breath as the plane landed, knuckles white as she gripped her planner. The breeze blew her hair, which she tucked behind her ear and adjusted her glasses again. At least her eyes were dry. How embarrassing would it be for Lena to see her crying?

She and Lena's driver, Bill, were waiting on the strip, watching as the jet turned to come and coast to a stop a few yards away. Kara's chest felt tight. She knew Lena was alright. The embassy had told her so on the phone but until she saw those piercing green eyes and raven hair for herself, she wouldn't believe it. Not fully. She felt antsy and the blonde needed to keep herself reined in.

The jet door opened, and airport personnel rolled a disembarking ladder up to the opening. Lena steadied herself as she stood, making her way to the exit. She still had to brace herself at the doorway, hands on either side, as her eyes adjusted to the light. Despite all the IV fluids she’d received the day before, she was still dizzy and easy to fatigue. 

At least she had been able to change into the clothes that had been abandoned at the hotel in Istanbul. The embassy had taken her suitcase as evidence. It felt better to be in her own clothes, but it was glaringly obvious to her how much weight had dropped off of her already slim frame. Where her clothes used to cling, they now hung off of her. The telltale glow of the arc reactor could be seen filtering through her blouse.

With the first step down the stairs, Lena glanced up and caught sight of Kara, standing at the ready with her hair being blown about her face in the wind. Her lips curled into a small smile, happy to see a familiar face upon landing. 

Kara felt the waterworks start almost immediately at the sight of her and the blonde had to quickly wipe at her eyes. She blinked several times, just trying to get them to stop. The changes in Lena, at least physically, were very blatant and it made her heart ached.  _ Pull yourself together, Kara _ …

As Lena got closer to the bottom of the stairs, Kara rushed over and offered up a hand if her boss needed any help balancing or walking. She didn't know the full story, and honestly Kara was afraid to learn it. The edges of her eyes were still damp and pink, but she held herself together. 

"It's so good to see you, Miss Luthor. I've got an appointment and everything set up for you at New York General right when we leave here. Bill is waiting to take us," Kara's voice was a little shaky, but she cleared her throat.

Lena took Kara’s hand as she hit the bottom step, leaning more of her weight than she cared to admit to into her assistant. “Cancel it,” she told her calmly, trying hard to keep her tone level. After two weeks in captivity, and two weeks spent with Sam, who never seemed to falter when it came to speaking her mind, Lena was feeling raw and exposed. “Get me an appointment with my general practitioner tomorrow.”

They started toward the car, where Bill was waiting. He greeted her warmly, but made no mention of her absence as he helped them both into the car. Once inside, Lena held fast to Kara’s hand. Everything seemed so loud and bright around her, but Kara’s hand was steady and warm.

Kara vigorously texted with her free hand, grateful for her prior year of practice, already canceling one appointment and setting up another. Her cheeks burned under the feel of Lena's hand so tightly in hers. She didn't try to remove it, just leaving it there for Lena as she needed it. Kara also resisted the instinct to rub her thumb over Lena's knuckles.

Something else had caught the attention of what felt like heightened senses. A low, soft  _ hum _ . It was continuous and something that didn't come from the car, Kara determined. A side glance to her boss caught a faint glow from her chest. What...was _ that _ ?!

"Do you just want to go straight home, Miss Luthor?" Kara asked tentatively, "What do you want?"

Lena hummed mildly in response, her head tipped back against the seat. Without opening her eyes, she said, “Fill me in on what I’ve missed.”

" _ Oh _ , I don't know if all that is a good i–" Kara shut her mouth when Lena opened her eyes to give her a look and she nodded quickly, "Of course, Miss Luthor."

Kara opened up her planner in her lap and flipped to pages over the past two weeks, "We held an initial press conference when we found out you were missing," Kara skimmed over the shrine and the paper articles and got straight to the business end of things, "the board shut down funding for most of your standing projects, but I kept them, so far, from opening any of the old weapon files. They made your mother temporary CEO of Luthor Corp and she's trying to push back against your contingency plan and buy up the shares to take over the company herself. She's got a meeting at one pm today in conference room seven... after the funeral she made me plan for you at eleven today at Blessed Mary's Catholic Church…" Kara trailed off.

A short, unamused burst of laughter bubbled out of Lena, and she dropped her head against the back of the seat again. “Of course she did. Couldn’t wait to confirm if I was actually dead before she swoops in like the vulture she is.”

Lena’s fingers tightened on Kara’s for a moment, and she shifted herself into a more upright position. “You said the funeral is at eleven?” At Kara’s confirming nod, she smiled widely. “Excellent. And what time is it now?”

"It's nine forty-seven," Kara answered, "I was going to call and try to get it cancelled while you were in your appointment."

“Oh, don’t,” Lena laughed again, rich and smoky. “We’ll be attending, of course.”

Kara let out a rather inappropriate bark of a laugh which she regretted almost immediately when she looked at Lena, " _ Oh _ you are serious?! O-okay, yes, of course Miss Luthor. Let's get you home and properly dressed for the occasion?"

Lena smiled at Kara’s obvious disbelief, but endearing willingness to go along with it, “What, do I not look the part of the dearly departed?” She waved vaguely at herself, lifting her head with a small sound of effort. “I certainly feel it.”

"I think... perhaps the dress you wore to the semi-annual Luthor Corp charity dinner back in August might...add to the shock and awe I believe you want to cultivate," Kara suggested helpfully. She was smiling, probably lopsided like a fool. She couldn't help it.

The chuckle that escaped her was genuinely amused, and Lena could do nothing to hold it in. “Yes, I think that would do quite nicely.”

_____

"Pick up...pick up...pick up, Alex," Kara muttered to herself, cellphone pressed close to her ear as she navigated the extensive luxury of Lena Luthor's lush penthouse.

Her boss was getting herself ready to crash a funeral and Kara was steadily losing her mind. She could still smell the faintest hint of floral notes and something a bit harsher which smelled like airplane leather and hospital soap on her hand where Lena had held it the entire ride to the building, even halfway up the elevator until she had realized it and let go.

She meandered into the kitchen, keeping her hands to herself. " _ Alex!" _

“ _ Detective Danvers _ ,” Alex’s voice was brusque and to the point. She had grabbed her phone without realizing it had been her personal line ringing.

"Alex, it's Kar _ a _ ," the blonde said quickly and leaned back a little to check to see if Lena's bedroom door was still shut. She continued in hushed tones, "Alex, I'm freaking out. I'm going to lose it. I'm in Lena's penthouse."

“ _ What? Are you okay? What happened? _ ” The change in Alex’s voice was slight, still to the point, but instantly softer, more concerned. 

"She found out about her funeral," Kara started and crossed over into the living room, "She's literally changing right now so that she can go and crash it, Alex. She's crashing her own funeral!"

Alex started laughing, unable to hold it in. “ _ Are you serious? _ ” She was starting to get looks from the other desks, but she turned away, shoulders shaking. “ _ She’s gonna go crash the ultra fancy sham funeral you’ve been complaining about for days? Oh my - Kara, I take it back, when I said I didn’t like her. That takes balls of steel. _ ”

" _ I know! _ " Kara gushed and chuckled some on her end too. It was just like Lena. The biggest 'fuck you' to her mother to date. "There's more but I'll tell you tonight. I think she's almost done. I've got to go."

The door Lena had disappeared into not long before made a swishing sound against the plush carpet as it opened. Lena took a step out into the hallway, hesitating for a moment. 

Kara would be the first person who would see the arc reactor, which was proudly on display in the deep V cut of her dress. It was part of why she’d picked it, if she was being honest with herself. Part of her desire to attend her own funeral was out of perverse curiosity - after all, who wouldn’t want to be present at their funeral? - but even more, she knew anything organized by her mother would be overly publicised, and announcing her return, and the ins and outs of it, would be faster with the amount of media bound to be there.

She was fully anticipating more press from this one single event than any other she’d attended this year.

“Kara?” Lena called, not seeing her assistant at first glance. 

Kara hung up and shoved her phone into her slacks and came around the corner, "Sorry I was sno–"

The blonde stopped abruptly, unable to do anything but stare unabashedly for a beat before she blinked, "I was getting your appointments changed," Kara explained, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt. Lena looked incredible. To be fair, she usually did and Kara had seen her in this dress on two previous occasions. Each time had been it's own life pausing moment but now her attention was more drawn to the bright pulsing blue  _ machine _ embedded in her boss's chest. Kara recognized the hum.

"Miss Luthor, Uhm...what is–" This was probably rude. Oh it was definitely rude. Kara shut her mouth and shook her head, "Nevermind. I'm sorry."

“No, it’s fine.” Lena sighed, fingers unconsciously touching the front plate of the reactor. It sat almost in the center of her sternum, framed by the plunging neckline of her dress. Truth be told, it was an area she was used to people staring at, but knowing now that people would be staring at the blue light rather than her chest was surprisingly disconcerting.

“It’s called an arc reactor,” she explained softly, forcing herself to bring her hand back to her side, “It’s currently keeping rather a lot of shrapnel from piercing my heart. I’ll have to produce one a little less crude, but desperate times.”

" _ Wow _ …" Kara pushed up her glasses and then cleared her throat. She forced herself to focus on any part of Lena that wasn't her chest or the arc reactor. It proved a task. She really wanted to know what happened now but, all in good time.

"Well, are you ready to go, Miss Luthor?"

“Yes,” Lena straightened her shoulders, bringing her chin up proudly. “Let’s go ruin my funeral.”

_____

The funeral turned out to be everything Lena had known it would be. The church Bill pulled up to was as ostentatious as it was old, with elaborate stained glass windows and an imposing silhouette. Lillian had spared no expense when it came to the decorating, and Lena realized with distaste that there were large displays of peonies throughout the gathering.

Peonies. 

Lena hated peonies. 

As soon as the car rolled to a stop, Lena stepped out of it, not waiting for Bill to open her door for her. With her head held high, she strode purposefully for the church, Kara trailing behind her. Immediately, she heard the whispers start, and it was only years of showing no emotion that allowed her to keep her face neutral. She scanned the small crowd already present, and was pleased to see her mother not yet among them.

She made it almost to the front of the church before she found something her mother very clearly had not meddled in. Behind an oversized casket, pictures flashed steadily across the screen, and Lena realized that they were not all the stock photos from promotions and galas that her mother would have chosen. Instead, there were photos of her at the blood drive she had organized last year, photos from some of her many visits to the children's hospital. Photos Lena had never seen before, in one she was making a silly face at a clearly ill child, a photo of her with an employee's pet who had come for an office visit. There was one she knew could only have come from one person.

It was a photo of Lena in her office, heels discarded by her desk, feet tucked under her as she sat at her desk, facing the large windows that led to her balcony. 

Kara followed behind Lena at a quick pace, and although she felt awkward for being here, she felt a lot better being here with Lena  _ alive _ . She also felt significantly more embarrassed now that Lena could actually see the slideshow she had put together. Lillian hadn't left her with much, but Kara had done what she could that she thought would have made Lena happy. 

Some of the press had definitely started to notice and Kara noticed them noticing. She had been too busy calling Alex to think of or write a speech for Lena. "What do you want to do, Miss Luthor?" Kara whispered, moving up to stand just behind Lena.

Lena shot her a conspiratorial grin, “We’ll wing it.” 

They finished their approach to the front pew, where her mother was currently holding court. Lena put on her best PR smile, murmuring a gentle  _ excuse me _ to the man to her mother’s left. “Is this seat taken?” she asked smoothly, dropping herself gracefully into the space next to her mother without waiting for a response.

Silence met her, and Lena widened her eyes in comical confusion, “Oh, I’m sorry, is this not where the family of the deceased sits?”

If she hadn’t known her, Lena would have assumed that Lillian was as unruffled as she ever was. But after so many years, Lena knew to recognize even the smallest facial movements, the very subtle widening of her eyes, the tightening around her mouth. “My dear, I do believe your seat is further forward,” Lillian said with a wide, false smile that Lena returned automatically.

“I’m sure you know it would take more than a little kidnapping to get rid of me, Mother.”

Lillian laughed, and the sound grated on Lena’s already frayed nerves. “Well, now that we’re all here, I suppose we ought to start the main attraction, shouldn’t we, Lena?” 

“Of course,” Lena smiled blithely, like her funeral was any other dinner party she’d ever attended. 

As they stood to leave the pew, no doubt headed for the press, Lena flashed Kara a quick wink. 

Kara witnessed the exchange which, to anyone else, would have looked like a normal conversation; however, to Kara, it was like watching Godzilla battle King Ghidorah. Lillian, of course, was the primordial three headed false alien king. The wink gave Kara some hope and she held a small thumbs up for Lena and put on an as assuring smile as she could muster. This was about to be  _ something _ .

Whispers followed them back outside, and Lena did her best to tune them out. As she’d anticipated, the front lawn of the church was being prepped as a makeshift press conference, likely to have been delivered after the service, after she was officially dead. 

Best laid plans, and all that. 

It took all of her self control not to smile as Lillian delivered the news to the waiting reporters that she was, in fact, not dead. The ripple that went through the crowd rose and more questions were asked, most of which Lena knew she would have to field herself. 

“I’m sure you all have so many questions,” Lillian soothed, “As do I, but I know no one could answer them better than my lovely daughter.” 

She stood back from the microphone and turned, arms open and inviting. Stepping forward, Lena found herself wrapped in a mother's embrace that she had only ever experienced in front of cameras. In her ear, Lillian whispered, “We’ll discuss this later.”

Lena bit back a snort. Wonderful, now she’d have something to look forward to.

Breaking away from Lillian’s arms, Lena took her place at the microphone, “Ladies and gentleman,” she started with a smile, and then stopped, suddenly unsure of what to say. All morning, she had been coasting on what used to be normal, on the familiar game of push and pull with her mother.

But after everything… did she really want to continue doing things as she had always done?

Microphones waited impatiently in front of her. Lena swallowed, faltering, the church behind her feeling like it was looming, crowding…

In the back, she could see Kara waiting by the car, already anticipating that once this was over, she would want to leave. 

Her heart calmed. The arc reactor hummed.

“Ladies and gentleman,” she started again, “As I’m sure you can all see, I am not dead in that casket behind me.” She smiled, but it shook, and she smoothed nonexistent wrinkles out of her dress in an attempt to calm herself. “You’ll have to forgive me for being frank, I’ve nothing prepared as I landed only this morning from what was unequivocally the worst two weeks of my life.” There was a small laugh from somewhere in the crush of reporters, and Lena felt herself relax, just a little.

“First, I’d like to thank my mother for manning the helm while I was away. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to know that I will be resuming my usual duties, and Luthor Corp will no longer take her away from her true passion.” 

“Now, to answer your more pressing questions. Two weeks ago, I was taken captive by someone I once considered a friend. He was an investor in Luthor Corp, and disagreed with our - no, that’s not right, - with  _ my _ movement away from weapons manufacturing. As of today, I want there to be no doubt in anyone's mind that my company will never produce another weapon while I am it’s CEO. Furthermore, in an effort to distance ourselves from our recent past, we will be rebranding the company as L Corp, effective immediately.” 

A slew of hands shot straight into the air from the reporters and paparazzi down in front of the podium. A couple questions cropped up about the rebranding. More still asked for some more detail from her story, about her time while missing. One in particular had a CatCo tag hanging around his neck and pushed himself a little more vigorously to the front than the others.

"Franklin Chess, CatCo Magazine. Miss Luthor, can you tell us what the device is on your chest?"

Two weeks ago, Lena would have teased that the question was a little forward, don’t you think? Now, she smiled, and tried to pretend like it wasn’t breaking her to stand there and pretend things were normal.

“Thank you, Mr. Chess. This is a miniaturized arc reactor, a device that while attached to a magnet, as it currently is, keeps a large amount of metal from shredding my heart. In case there were any concerns about my having one,” she gave a nod to the paparazzi that clung to the edges of the group, “I can assure you, I’ve made quite an effort to preserve it.”

She addressed a few more questions, some about the rebranding (“We’ve been preparing to rebrand for some time now, I can’t imagine a better reason to push for change.”), some about the change in business direction (“We’ve been moving away from weaponry for as long as I’ve been CEO.”), but drew the line when it came to details on her personal experience.

“My Public Relations specialist, Jessica Huang, will release an official statement later this week. Thank you for your time.”

She stepped back from the microphone, fighting the absurd urge to pick it up only to drop it, and made her way back toward the car. As soon as she stepped off the steps of the church, Kara was back at her elbow, glaring at anyone who dared approach her to ask more questions.

It wasn’t until they were both safely ensconced in the backseat of the towncar that her shoulders slumped and she let out a shaky breath.

Kara sighed too, but inwardly. "You did very well, Miss Luthor," Kara started, stalling, afraid to ask the question she wanted to. It had the great potential to be  _ loaded _ . "Are you alright, Lena?" She used her real name. Kara hadn't even caught it, but she hoped that it conveyed genuine concern, as she was concerned. Lena had just pulled off something _ incredible _ . The blonde knew she would end up on the receiving end of a very long and very hostile call with Lillian later for not giving her a heads-up, but honestly Kara wouldn't change a thing. 

Lena blinked, pale green eyes unseeing as she thought about the question. Finally, she blinked, shook her head, and gave a devastatingly wet laugh.

“Kara, I have never been less alright in my life.”

Kara instantly felt foolish for asking. Of course Lena wasn't alright. She had gone through some terrible, unspeakable ordeal and came back so changed and was thrown right into whatever fresh hell her mother had concocted.

"I'm sorry," Kara answered quietly, "but I am glad that you are back. If you need anything–and I know it's my job anyway, but I really mean it– _ anything _ , you just let me know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all of your coments and kudos! We really appreciate them! Keep'em coming!
> 
> Come yell at us on Tumblr:
> 
> bandwidthlimit
> 
> happypugstuff


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy early Thanksgiving y'all
> 
> Whooooaaa, we're half-way there!!!!  
> Whoaoooo (livin' on a prayer!)

Part of her didn’t want to be working on this. Lena squinted through a magnifying glass at the sleek shell of the new arc reactor she had been working on. 

It had been several days since her funeral, and Lena had spent most of them torn between a sudden inability to get herself out of bed, and her familiar struggle with leaving the office. She had been checked out by her doctor, prescribed a rotation of medications, some for the infection she had been sure she would get, and some for the anxiety she had been told was normal.

Kara had begun meeting her at her front door, rather than the office, always with a hot coffee in hand.

Every day, it stabbed another splinter of guilt through her. Here she was, returning back to her almost normal routine, when she had left Sam Arias bleeding in a cave.

How was that fair? How was it fair that she had gotten out, but someone who had dedicated their whole life to helping other people, was left to -

She snapped herself back to the present, blinking away tears she would never acknowledge. No, she would finish the reactor, and find some way to go back and look for Sam. 

Sitting back, Lena pushed the magnifying glass away from the wiring she’d been working on. With the right set up, and materials easy to come by, the new reactor was coming together much faster than the original, but it would take her another full day of uninterrupted work to finish it.

Kara held the bag of takeout in one hand and pressed the button for the intercom that called inside to Lena's penthouse. If this were to become their new normal, Kara should probably have a key. She at least had a key card to get into L Corp.

"Miss Luthor, it's Kara. I'm assuming you haven't had dinner,"  _ again _ , "I've got your favorite for you," she said into the intercom.

Unbidden, a soft smile spread across Lena's face. If she had to be interrupted, at least it would be by someone whose presence didn't make her skin crawl. She rolled across her home lab on the work stool she’d hardly left that day and buzzed Kara through security. 

It occurred to her that she hadn’t eaten the lunch Kara had helpfully dropped off earlier that day, either. Suddenly self conscious, she abandoned the lab to the kitchen, where she quickly put the incriminating containers in her large, mostly empty refrigerator. 

A soft knock on the front door drew her attention, and as if on cue, her stomach grumbled with hunger. 

She swung the door open to reveal her assistant, juggling take out containers in one hand. 

"Evening," Kara smiled and held up the bag, "You've been unusually quiet today so I figured you probably forgot dinner too, so I thought I'd bring you some. I've also emailed you the minutes from the two manufacturers meetings earlier today. I followed all your notes to the letter. They low balled, just like you said they would and I gave them the second offer you suggested and–anyway, it's all in your inbox. Do you need anything else from me, Miss Luthor?" 

“Thank you, Kara,” Lena took the bag gratefully, bringing it into the kitchen to unload it, knowing Kara would follow her. As she spread the food out, she considered the question. “I know you’ve been working harder than normal, the last few weeks,” she started, picking her words carefully. “And I know that you haven’t seen the benefits of your raise just yet, but…” 

She spread her hands out flat on the counter, finally realizing the state of disarray she was in. There was grease on her fingers, which meant it was likely across her face, or on her shirt, and most definitely smeared across the thighs of her pants. 

“I know that I am not easy to work for, but I need you to know how much I appreciate everything you do for me.”

Kara couldn't help but smile. Really smile, ear to ear, sides of her eyes crinkled. It was the biggest smile she'd had since Lena had gone missing. "Thank you, Miss Luthor. I, I really appreciate you telling me. And look, honestly, you don't need to worry about the raise. You're dealing with plenty, so just, please don't even worry about it. I'm just glad you're back."

Lena fidgeted, just slightly, her hands picking at the stretchy material of her pants. "Well, when it comes to your raise, perhaps…" She glanced at Kara, "Take a look at your paystub when you're sitting down, if you wouldn't mind."

Her stomach grumbled again, and she took the excuse to turn away and change the subject. Busying herself with opening containers, she basked in the familiar smells of her favorite comfort foods. 

Kara really did think of everything.

"I'll need to find you a key for the front door. The security team is already briefed to let you in whenever you get here, but I imagine it's getting tedious for you to have to wait for me to buzz you in."

"I don't mind. I'll wait as long as I need to," Kara said confidently. Lena wouldn't ever hear her complaining about not having a key. She was lucky enough to still have a boss and a job as it stood already. If Lena hadn't come back and Lillian had taken over she would be out on the street.

Kara did shift a little nervously though. Lena still didn't really look any healthier since she had come back. Well, her skin glowed again and she seemed to have some more energy but Kara could tell she still wasn't filling out her clothes like she used to. The blonde felt a little...well, perhaps it wasn't something _ normal _ people would notice, normal being people who weren't in love with their boss. But Kara noticed and she worried about Lena. She was just... afraid to ask for fear of being turned out.

"Miss Luthor, I know you're probably tired of hearing this question. And honestly you're probably  _ really _ tired of hearing me ask it, but," Kara swallowed, "Are you... doing okay? I'm sorry if that's too personal. I can leave, but I just want you to know I  _ am _ here if you need it. If you need to talk to anyone. I mean I'm not saying talk to  _ me _ . I can vet you some therapists–sorry, that's probably presumptuous," Kara chewed on her bottom lip and seemed defeated for all her rambling, "I'll see myself out. I hope you have a good night, Miss Luthor. I will see you in the morning."

“Kara, wait. I’m doing this all wrong, I’m sure. I don’t - I don’t know how to talk to people outside of my work, and I’ve had very little experience with it until recently.” Lena swallowed hard, trying to ignore the way it felt like the words were clawing at her throat.

Her doctor had made a similar recommendation, find a therapist and talk it out.

She didn’t know how to talk it out. She could barely handle a conversation with her assistant, much less someone she didn’t even know. 

“I don’t want to cross any lines that would make you uncomfortable, but I have seen you almost every day for the last year, you do so much for me. I’d like for us to have a more even playing field.” She was gaining traction in this conversation, finally. The worst of it was, she knew Kara would stand there patiently all night waiting for her to get to the point. “I’d like it if you would address me by my first name. If it makes you more comfortable to do that while it’s just us, here, that’s fine.”

Kara somehow managed to hide her excitement better than she thought she could, and simply nodded, having turned back around to face Lena while she spoke. She felt honored that the woman would allow her to do this, but Kara needed to also remember that it didn't necessarily mean anything. "I'm not uncomfortable, Mis–Lena," Kara corrected, "Thank you. I just didn't want to overstep. I just want you to be well. I only suggest it because... pardon me saying so, but you still seem like you're back in Turkey sometimes. Most of the time. I suggest maybe a therapist only because I know it's their job to help people talk through things. My sister even has to go to one sometimes–she's NYC PD," Kara explained quickly, "But I know that you are a private person. So if that would be hard for you then maybe just talking to a friend might help you...get back to yourself. I mean no offense, Lena."

“A friend,” she repeated flatly. Briefly, she flashed back to the cave, to Sam’s incessant pop culture references that she largely had not understood. 

Lena knew this was exactly what Kara was expressing concern about, that she couldn’t seem to move past what she had been through. It wasn’t even the captivity, though she’d admit that it had been less than ideal, or the threats on her life. Lord knew she received those often enough. 

What kept Lena up at night was walking away from someone she had started to consider a friend, someone who probably died in that cave. 

“I don’t have a lot of those left.”

Oh god, she was about to cry!  _ Way to go you du _ mmy, Kara swallowed hard again, brows creasing in concern. She didn't know what to do. She didn't think talking like this would have set her off. Lena was usually so...well she never even looked wet eyed, ever. At least not to Kara's recollection.

"Lena, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean–shoot, it wasn't my intention to upset you. If it makes you feel any better, I consider you a friend," was that too far? Kara didn't know. She was walking a really thin, really gray blurry line and the blonde wasn't sure how to navigate it.

Her throat felt tight, and it made it difficult to take the steadying breath she needed. Lena offered a small smile, but she felt it wobble on her face and knew she was fighting a losing battle. The next breath she took hitched hard, and she turned herself away from Kara, wrapping her own arms tight around her middle like she could hold herself together.

Oh  _ god _ , she'd ruined it. Kara went straight into panic mode. She didn't have any previous experience to draw from to address this. What did she do?! Lena was crying,  _ actively _ sobbing and Kara had triggered it somehow with her words. Lena was private. She would want some space. She would want to be left alone. That made sense.

Then why were Kara's feet taking her closer to Lena instead of the door? Surprisingly strong arms for such a small frame wrapped around Lena from behind, and Kara put her full effort into the hug. She didn't say anything. She wasn't sure what she  _ should _ say anyway. The blonde just held Lena, lightly squeezing, but not so much so that it would be uncomfortable. Kara shut her eyes. She felt...warm. She glimpsed a city of gold. Felt the soft glow of a warm sun. 

Kara opened her eyes and she sighed, starting to loosen her grip. This definitely felt like a line. "Everything will be ok."

Lena’s hands tensed on Kara’s forearms as she started to pull away, and Lena wasn’t altogether sure if it was in an effort to keep Kara’s arms there, or the desire to push her way free. Her breaths were still coming in small, hiccuping gasps, but the flow of tears had stopped and Lena abruptly felt trapped, like there wasn’t enough air in the room.

She forced her fingers to relax on Kara’s arms, and slowly disentangled herself, taking several steps back from her assistant. “Thank you, Kara. I’m sorry for… for that. I think - I think it’s best if you go.”

Kara just nodded...and then kept nodding for a little longer than necessary. "Y-yep. I'm really sorry, " _ stop talking _ , "I'm so sorry," _ please God, shut up _ , "I'll see you tomorrow, Miss Luthor!" 

The blonde left quickly, feet carrying her out of the room faster than she anticipated. She let Lena's door shut behind her with a thud and Kara just leaned against it for a moment, eyes squeezed shut, trying to keep her breathing even. The lights in the hall flickered.

"Stupid, stupid,  _ stupid _ …" her hands were in tight fists until she relaxed one to run it through her hair and take her glasses off her face. She wiped her eyes with her other hand before replacing her glasses. Kara made her feet carry her to the elevator and by the time she was walking out on the bottom floor she was already calling Alex.

_____

Alex stormed into the apartment, her keys barely staying in the bowl because she’d thrown them so hard. She hadn’t been able to take Kara’s call, but had listened to her sister wail hysterically on her voicemail a half an hour later.

“Kara?” Alex dropped her bag onto the floor, missing the hook entirely. “Kar, are you home?”

"In here…" Kara called weakly from her place on the couch where she sat cross legged under a blanket. A carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sat empty on the coffee table and Kara was still sucking on the spoon and watching their blank busted TV.

"How was work?"

“Better than yours, clearly.” Alex approached the couch cautiously. Kara seemed a little too calm for the amount of hysterics she’d spewed into the voicemail.

"Well, a street light burst on my way home so...and I meant to stop and buy a new tv. I got a raise apparently. I forgot, obviously. But I'm probably also getting fired tomorrow anyway," Kara mumbled and put the spoon down into the carton. She wanted to cry again but she was just  _ so _ tired.

"I was just...dumb.  _ So _ dumb. I literally made her cry and she asked me to leave. After I, you know, hugged her without any kind of permission too, so there's that. You're probably sick of me whining about her anyway," Kara shifted and pulled her feet up to her chest. 

There was a lot to unpack there, and Alex couldn’t quite wrap her head around it all at once. “You made her cry?” She finally asked.

"Not on purpose," Kara sighed. Thinking about it just made her feel foolish all over again. "I asked her if she was alright. She's acting normal for everyone else but I can tell she's not quite...well, her mind is still in Turkey I think. I offered to find some therapists if she wanted. Or if she didn't want that then she should at least talk to a friend. And then she just broke down. And I felt so bad for her I just...I hugged her and then she asked me to go. So I left."

“Well, that right there,” Alex clapped a hand on her knee definitively, “She definitely needs a therapist if a Kara Danvers hug makes her lose her shit.” Alex bumped her shoulder gently against Kara’s, trying to pull a smile out of her unusually serious sister. “Kar, I bet she was just embarrassed. Who likes to cry in front of people?”

"Lena doesn't cry,  _ ever _ ," Kara started. She didn't smile, not even a half upturned grin, "She's very private, Alex. She takes her boundaries very seriously. I'm just her  _ assistant _ for heaven's sake. And I knew I shouldn't have but I hugged her and now I feel like I've crossed a boundary and she's going to fire me. I just need to be passive, but I  _ can't _ ."

Alex sighed, pulling Kara into a side hug. “She’s not gonna fire you, Kara. She wouldn’t, not after just getting back - who could she possibly hire that would put up with the things you do? She’s texted you at three o’clock in the morning every day for the last week!”

"That's because she hasn't been sleeping. She's got rings under her eyes. I don't think she's eating either. I thought things would be better when she got back but I'm still worrying about her so much. I don't know how to be a normal assistant and also...be…" Kara trailed off and then sighed. Her body leaned heavier onto Alex and she finally accepted the embrace, "It's bad for me isn't it? I don't know how to stop it…"

“I don’t think there’s an easy answer, Kar.” Alex frowned, resting her cheek against the top fo Kara’s head. “I mean, the way I see it, you’ve got a couple options. You could quit,” she felt Kara tense next to her, and huffed out a laugh, “Yeah, I know. You won’t. Or you could talk to her about what you’re going through,” that was less likely than Kara quitting, Alex knew, “Or you can resign yourself to not being a normal assistant, especially since nothing about Lena Luthor is normal anymore.”

"She's got a fusion based energy producing electromagnetic core in her chest to keep her from dying, Alex," Kara said, actually sounding somewhat in awe instead of sad. "Yes, I read the initial arc reactor paper when it was first pitched as a renewable energy source. I can't leave. And I can't tell her because then I would definitely have to leave. No…" Kara groaned and grabbed for Alex's hand, "She needs me."

  
  


_____

They didn’t talk about Lena’s breakdown in the kitchen, and when Lena inevitably texted Kara at three thirteen in the morning, she immediately followed it up with an apology about the time, and then a thank you, for dinner the night before. 

Outside of the residual awkwardness, Lena was content to pretend that Kara had never seen so much as a single tear touch her cheeks, much less an entire fountain of them.

Today was a new day, and a special one. She had thrown herself back into the lab after finally eating, and her determination to forget the embarrassment of sobbing in front of take out, Lena found herself a little ahead of schedule. The finished arc reactor settled heavily in her palm, a much cleaner version than the one that hummed alongside her heartbeat. 

She had… less than an hour until Kara was due to knock on her door. 

Which meant she needed to shower, which would be so much easier after the old reactor was replaced. No more exposed wiring meant normal showers. Showers that didn’t involve medical tape and the stress of a leak. 

She was half tempted to wait, but a quick glance at herself in the mirror made up her mind for her.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand why Kara was so worried about her. Lena had taken just enough care of herself to get back a fraction of her health, which was really only enough to make the first thing people noticed about her the arc reactor. Otherwise, her typically sleek hair was lank, and there was only so much concealer could do to hide the bags under her eyes. She hadn’t gained all of the weight back that her doctor had wanted her to, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.

Kara’s effort, anyway. 

Lena shook her head, like she could physically force the thoughts away. She set about to taping plastic wrap over the arc reactor. The exposed wiring in the front made bathing hazardous, and she’d only had to experience one leak to know she never wanted to do it again. 

By the time she made it into the shower, she only had twenty minutes before Kara was due to arrive. She rushed through it, drying herself off as quickly as she could manage once she was out. A few passes through her hair with her brush, and she left it to air dry, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t have to leave the penthouse unless she chose to, so the only person who would see the frizziness of her natural curls was Kara.

Kara, who she would have to ask a large favor of today. Lena hoped that the night before wouldn’t be hanging over them this morning. 

The three in the morning thank you texts had been nice to wake up to, before Kara told herself that Lena was just being nice. She did say she had recognized how much Kara did for her and so the blonde just assumed it was part of that. She shouldn't read into it. That would only make the situation worse for herself. And so, diligently as ever, Kara stood in front of Lena's penthouse door, a bit apprehensive, with coffee in one hand and a wrapped breakfast sandwich in the other. She would _ not _ mention the night before. She would not even ask if Lena was alright. She would just do her job.

The blonde pressed the buzzer, trying to balance the coffee in the same hand, "Miss Lu–Lena, it's Kara." Maybe if Kara just did a really good job today, Lena wouldn't fire her. The lights in the hallway flickered again.  _ Don't think about it. Don't think about it. _

Lena swung the door open widely, hoping that she didn't look as jittery as she felt. "Kara!" She stepped back to let her assistant in, gratefully accepting what would turn out to be the third coffee of her morning. 

"How big are your hands?"

That was an unusual question, but over the course of their time together, Kara had come to expect at least a few. She placed Lena's breakfast sandwich on the counter for her and unloaded her bag from her shoulder down beside a barstool.

"Uhm...I...uh," Kara just held her hands up for Lena to see. They weren't small, but they weren't as big as a man's either, "Can I ask why?"

"Hmm?" Lena looked at Kara over the rim of her coffee cup, eyes wide. "Oh," she said, lowering the cup from her lips, "I need your help with something."

She tipped her head to the side consideringly, eyeing Kara's hands with a critical gaze. "I think you'll fit, " she said absently. 

Kara did her best to ignore what that sentence did to certain places in her body. Her lips pursed a little more, brow wrinkling in confusion. Her boss seemed to be a bit distracted today. A little more... unusual than normal.

"What am I helping with?"  _ Where is it exactly you want my hands to fit??? _

"Come with me," Lena led Kara back to the lab, hands unbuttoning the top few buttons on her top as she went. She paused at her workbench, turning toward Kara, shirt gaping to just below the gently humming arc reactor.

"I need to replace this," she said firmly.

Kara was desperately glad she hadn't been holding onto it. She didn't want to have to explain to Lena why she had broken something else. The neckline of her dress at the funeral had been low. It had certainly shown more than this but this seemed...more intimate. A  _ personal _ invitation instead of an open declaration.

"Y-you want me to help you...with the arc reactor?" Kara, to her credit, kept most of the anxiety out of her voice, as it did not shake; however, Kara knew she was far from qualified. "How? And, are you sure, Lena? I mean I've read a lot of your papers but I'm not–I mean this certainly isn't–what does this have to do with the size of my hands?"

"You're plenty qualified," Lena waved off, knowing full well that Kara was not. "There's no one else I would trust more with this. You're not squeamish, are you?" She raised a brow at Kara curiously, and at Kara's weak shake of her head, she gave a determined nod.

"Good. I'll coach you through it." She reached up and twisted the arc reactor at her chest, deftly pulling it free from its casing. It sat humming in her hand, and Lena tried to project calm.

"Yeah? Okay," Kara accepted it and reached and began to unbutton the cuffs of her button down and started to roll and fold the sleeves up till her forearms were exposed. She had done some strange things for Lena, but this was by far both the strangest and the most stressful. "Ready."

The arc reactor in her hand hummed in response to her elevated heart rate, which Lena assumed was due to the reality of what they were about to do, and nothing at all to do with Kara's exposed forearms. Clearly.

"Once I disconnect this," she raised the reactor in her hand, ignoring the breathless quality to her voice, "we'll have very little time to install the new one." As she spoke, Lena was beginning to deconstruct the wiring that attached her to the generator in her palm. "I need you to pull the wire out without touching the siding."

"You want me to reach...you want me to reach  _ in _ there?" Kara asked even though she was fairly certain she already knew the answer. She was going to have to reach in there. Her hand was going to be  _ inside _ of Lena, and  _ not _ in the way she had had a few wet dreams about.

"O-okay," Kara exhaled a breath and prepared herself for the  _ very _ anxiety inducing task she was about to participate in. Lena would see the blonde gulp and then as careful and as close a look inside as she could manage without the situation becoming anymore awkward. 

Kara steadied her hand, brow wrinkled in absolute focus, and then reached her hand inside the plated hole in Lena's chest. She went slowly, teeth coming out to bite her lower lip as her fingers moved to find and hook the wire. And then she touched something.

" _ Oh _ ...oh that's–" it was wet. It was wet and sticky and there was some kind of...  _ something _ , some kind of residue she was reaching into, "it's...wet," Kara frowned but found the wire. She held it as carefully as she could in the small space, keeping it between her pointer and middle finger.  _ Pull it out without touching the siding...okay. You can do this. _

Kara pulled but nothing seemed to happen immediately. She was very worried about hurting Lena, or worse, somehow messing up the entire thing and killing her. She pulled again and from inside there was a small quiet  _ pop _ .

The pressure that had settled across Lena's chest when she had disconnected the wire increased as soon as the magnet popped free. Her breathing, already shallow, took on a ragged note and she groped blindly at her desk for the new arc reactor.

"There's exposed wiring at the base plate," she managed, voice tight with effort. "I need you to attach these," she jiggled the wires that dangled from the newly completed reactor, "to those. Quickly."

"Yep,  _ yep _ , okay!" Kara nodded and very carefully guided the wires inside until the hand inside the hole could feel both sets of the wires. She did the best she could and fitted the new wires in place, brow starting to glisten with some sweat. There was a  _ click _ and Kara pulled her hand all the way out, finding it covered in some sort of opaque mucus. It made her frown but it only lasted a second as she shook her hand off, "Is that it? What now? Are you alright?"

As the new arc reactor began to whir, much quieter than the original, Lena took a deep breath. She could practically feel the color returning to her face, and with a feeling of satisfaction, she snapped the enclosed generator into the opening.

"I'm alright," she assured Kara, producing a blue shop towel from the roll by her desk. Offering it to her assistant, her lips twisted in a wry smile. "I apologize for that," she nodded to Kara's hand, "It's an inorganic discharge from the device, not from me."

"Didn't make it feel less gross," Kara said offhandedly as she wiped her hand off with the towel then some pink came to her cheeks, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that like it–just glad I could help." She shut her mouth pretty quickly after that and found a trash can for the towel. 

A surprised, genuine laugh escaped her, and Lena found herself regarding Kara in a new light. She had said the night before that she considered them to be friends. Lena couldn't say she'd ever put much thought into it, but maybe it was time that changed.

"It is gross," she agreed, and hesitantly reached out to touch Kara's arm. "Thank you, for your help. I don't have anyone else." 

It was a surprising burst of honesty, and Lena's fingers tensed in shock. She hadn't meant to say it at all.

"You're welcome. That's on me, I guess. I did say if you needed  _ anything _ ," Kara smiled lightly, "I suppose this definitely falls under that offer." She swallowed a little harder than she meant to and had to look away from Lena. She spotted the old arc reactor on her desk.

"What will you do with it? The old one?" She asked and nodded to the still glowing device. The magnet was dripping some discharge onto Lena's desk.

"And how long will this new one work for? I don't know, honestly, if I could do that again…"

Lena's hand slid down to Kara's forearm as she turned to look at the discarded reactor. "Throw it out. Or incinerate it, I don't care." She turned back to Kara, and pulled her hand away as soon as she realized where it was.

"I shouldn't need to replace this for quite some time. Years, if I'm lucky." The buttons of her shirt were still undone, leaving the topic of discussion to illuminate the space between them without a barrier. "I'll try not to ask that of you again, Kara."

"I mean, I would do it," Kara said quickly, "but just...you know. I'm probably not the best qualified. Although now I do have experience," She put on a quirky grin and then took a step back. Deft fingers began to unfold her sleeves and button them back into place.

Kara moved over to the desk and ripped off a blue towel and wrapped the old reactor with it and then turned to Lena, "Do you need anything else? I need to go to the office but I can come back after lunch if you need me."

Green eyes snapped back to Kara's face, away from Kara's sleeves. Lena felt the flush creeping up the back of her neck, but ignored it, instead bringing her own hands up to close the buttons of her shirt.

Her mind helpfully supplied a list of ways that she may need Kara, all of which caused Lena to clear her throat forcefully, sure that this had to be some insane response to trauma.

Maybe she did need a therapist.

"Thank you, Kara," she finally managed, hoping her voice came across professionally. "I'll let you know."

"Alright," Kara nodded and let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding, "Well, I'll get out of your hair then. Uhm, there is a breakfast sandwich on the counter for you. You have a Zoom call with the Philippines at one thirty about the solar panel project and please do not forget to also eat lunch." 

The blonde waited to make sure Lena had registered everything and then she tucked the reactor close to herself and headed for the exit to the lab. "Have a good day, Lena," Kara shut the door carefully, went to collect her things, and then exited the penthouse, mind going a mile a minute.

_____

Okay, just a little more…” Lena muttered to herself, bent in half over the desk in the middle of the lab. Her hair was pulled haphazardly into a bun at the back of her head, and she spoke around a screw that stuck from between her lips.

“Oh, that’s useless. Get out of there,” she swatted a rolling screw away from what would eventually be a heads up display. 

Halfway across the room, a partly eaten burger sat and cooled. Kara had brought it to her slightly before lunch, along with news from the office. The change from Luthor Corp to L Corp had been completed, mostly thanks to the groundwork that Lena had laid months before. Production of any weaponry had ground to a halt, and many of their more humanitarian projects had begun again. Kara had dropped off a stack of paperwork that needed her attention, but it sat untouched next to her lunch.

Since Lena’s uncomfortable revelation several days before, she had been doing her best to keep Kara at a distance. It was disconcerting, this desire to have her assistant nearby all the time, and Lena fought against it the only way she knew how - by throwing herself into project after project. 

Behind her, propped up on a makeshift stand, stood the product of 58 hours worth of work (she had, against her better judgement, allowed Kara to guilt her into sleeping at least some of the last three days). It glinted dimly in the labs adjustable lighting, a sleeker version of the suit she and Sam had produced several weeks earlier.

Now familiar guilt stabbed at her as she thought of Sam, and her resolve to finish grew stronger. She had to find out if the agent had made it out, if she was even still alive. The contacts she’d reached out to had been able to find little to nothing. Sam Arias was a United States Embassy Investigator that had previously been based out of New York, before being transferred to Turkey a year before.

The screw she had been working with over tightened and stripped, causing Lena’s screwdriver to slip off and clang onto the metal table top.

“Shit!” She sat back sharply, throwing the offending tool away from her in frustration. 

She needed a break, she knew that, but the jittery energy that had shivered through her frame made it hard to accept it. She wanted to get this off the ground, she needed to do something,  _ anything _ , that would make a difference somehow. Something more than solar panels and water filters, something with a real, immediate impact. 

What she needed was hope. 

“Hope,” she muttered with a little laugh, and turned her attention in another direction. 

_____

It was the first time in over a week she’d been at the office, and Lena was missing the comfort of her stretchy pants and soft, well worn shirts. She shifted in the form fitting pencil skirt, a deep blue color that matched the earrings she’d worn this morning. Her neck lay bare, hair pulled into a sleek bun, exposing the very top of the arc reactor at the scooped neckline of her shirt. 

Spreadsheets for budget took up most of her modern white desk, and it was a struggle to get herself to focus, when her attention was elsewhere. At the edge of her desk, a vaguely nebulous hourglass sat, gently pulsing as it rotated slowly. 

Hope had all but replaced her. Or at least that's how Kara was starting to feel. She had originally felt that she and Lena had been...not necessarily bonding, but definitely growing closer, albeit slowly. Lena had opened up to her several times but not since she had helped her replace the arc reactor.

Kara recognized when Lena was pushing people away, keeping them at arm's length so she didn't need to deal with them as much. She saw it on all of the dates Lena had been on before and especially with her mother. And now here was Hope, the new AI who could do everything Kara could and more,  _ and _ faster. What need did Lena Luthor have for an assistant when she had basically developed an AI specifically for that purpose.

Kara had told Alex as much, expecting yet again to be fired any day now. As if things couldn't get any worse, Kara heard the elevator  _ ding _ and a very  _ distinct _ gate of heels on tile that she recognized too well. The blonde looked up from her computer to behold the devil herself, entered L Corp. Kara hoped that the Godzilla in the office over was feeling up for a surprise.

"Ms. Luthor, you can't go in there. Lena is  _ very _ busy," Kara said and stood her ground between Lena's closed office door and the three headed hydra of a woman before her. Her stance was firm and her face was serious. If only Lillian was as easily swayed by it as restaurants and reporters.

Lillian raised a cold brow at Kara, looking her up and down as if to size her up. She gave a cruel smile, one that dared Kara to stop her, and pushed through the door to Lena’s office, where she found her daughter frowning at a form as she read it over for the fifth time.

“Mother,” Lena said coolly, setting the paper down on the desk. “What an unpleasant surprise.” She looked over Lillian’s shoulder to the still open door, where Kara was no doubt loitering.

“Kara, make sure there’s a car ready to escort my mother out. I’m sure we won’t be long.”

"Yes, Miss Luthor. I'm so sorry, she pushed past me," Kara apologized, berating herself internally as she rushed back to her desk. She got the car ordered, putting her frustration out onto the poor valet downstairs.

"Crashing your own funeral. You always did have a flair for the dramatics." Lillian lowered herself into one of the uncomfortable white chairs opposite Lena's desk.

"Well, I learned from the best," Lena quipped, leaning back in her chair and crossing one leg over the other. 

This was exactly what she hadn't wanted to deal with today.

"Oh, stop," Lillian leaned back into the chair like she owned it. "Start at the beginning and tell me what happened. Leave nothing out."

A part of her wanted to. A part of her wanted to spill it all out and have someone tell her that it was okay, that she’d made the right choice, that they would have made the same decisions in her place.

And the more rational part of her knew that Lillian was not that person. 

Lena put her elbows on the arms of her desk chair, two fingers just barely touching the clear surface of the arc reactor. “Why is it so important to you to know, Mother? Isn’t it enough that your only daughter is alive and well?”

It should have been, Lena knew. That was how normal mother daughter relationships were. She knew that to be true because that had never been the relationship she and Lillian shared. Lena had never been enough for her, and she just knew that Lillian would have enjoyed nothing more than to close the chapter on the biggest disappointment in her life.

“You know that I love you, in my own way. Can’t a mother be concerned about her daughter?”

Lena scoffed bitterly, “She could, if she’d ever treated me like a daughter. What do you want?”

“Why do I have to want something?”

“Because you only ever tell me you love me as a bargaining chip. I have work to do, and this back and forth with you is wasting my time.”

The calm mask of Lillian’s face finally broke, into something almost resembling respect. “I’ve been speaking with your brother, and he’s very interested to hear about what you’ve done with yourself.” She waved thin fingers toward the glowing light at Lena’s breast. “Of course, if you ever reached out to him yourself, you’d know that. You’d also know that he’s showing improvement.”

“Improvement,” Lena repeated. There was something off in the way Lillian was speaking about Lex, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “That’s wonderful.”

“His doctors are considering a trial release.”

“And you agree with them, I take it.”

“Of course I do,” Lillian raised an eyebrow, “Don’t you? Don’t you want your brother back?”

She missed Lex more than anything, and Lillian knew it. Lex had always been her rock, but she had watched his descent into insanity and had tried to reach out to him before he’d tipped over the edge. Lex was a danger to himself and others, and it had been under Lena’s recommendation that he’d been institutionalized.

“Of course I do, Mother.” Lena said softly. “If you’d see yourself out, I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

Kara left her desk and stepped back into Lena's office, careful of the conversation going on and waited for a pause before stepping through the door, "Ms. Luthor's car has been brought around," she alerted.

"Thank you, Kara," Lena stared at her mother with hard eyes until Lillian sighed and stood, stepping past Kara without giving her a glance.

Kara held her breath as Lillian walked past her and then finally all the way out to the elevator. She waited for Lena's mother to be gone completely before she turned back to her preferred Luthor. "Miss Luthor, is it alright if I go a little early today? Your itinerary for tomorrow is already all confirmed. It starts with a meeting in conference room two with an agent from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division at ten am. I am not sure what they want to go over with you. They wouldn't say, only that it was very important."

Lena put her elbows on the desk, dropping her head heavily into her hands. "Yes, thank you, Kara. Call my car, please." Lifting her head, she started to shuffle the papers on her desk into a pile to bring home. 

"Thank you," Kara nodded and called Lena's car then popped her head back in, "the car will be around in a couple minutes. Kyle will buzz you. I'll see you tomorrow, Miss Luthor," Kara said. She collected her bag and headed for the exit. She knew even if the car was brought around, Lena would likely still take at least half an hour to leave the office, especially if Kara wasn't there to make her leave or remind her.

It meant Kara had just enough time to grab Lena's dinner that she had already called ahead for, drop it off at her penthouse, and then pick up a pizza for herself and Alex.

_____

Kara had used the new key Lena had recently gotten her for her flat. It certainly made deliveries like this easier and dropping her coffee in the morning a quicker affair. Since the reactor incident, as Kara called it in her head, she had had her key to deliver Lena's coffee and itinerary in the morning with important reminders highlighted, and then be able to leave and go straight to the office without having to face Lena. Lena apparently seemed to prefer it that way, so Kara dropped the bag of food intended to be Lena’s dinner onto the counter and began to scribble a note for her boss.

Lena shuffled blindly into the kitchen, her mind still in the lab, conquering the problem of getting Hope to interface with the suits operating system. She had changed as soon as she made it home, now clad in old MIT sweatpants that had certainly seen better days and a raglan shirt that hung from one shoulder. She pushed a stray hair from her face as she rounded the corner, and stopped dead in the entrance. 

"Kara! I wasn't expecting you!"

Kara jumped, letting out a briefly frightened exclamation of “ _ Oh! _ ” before she felt silly upon realizing it was just Lena. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you would already be home! I was just bringing you dinner,” she said a little breathlessly then looked down at the pen in her hand. She’d snapped it in two on accident.

Kara slid the remains into the pocket of her slacks, eyes unable to do anything but linger on Lena. She had always only ever seen her done up to the nines, which was its own sort of breathless but this was new. It was  _ cute _ , seeing Lena in a sweater and sweatpants. “I’m sorry,” Kara blinked to get herself to focus and tried to wipe the awkward smile from her lips, “I’ll get out of your hair. Don’t forget to eat, okay?”

"I -," Lena started, then stopped, a frown crinkling her features. "Would you stay?" she finally managed, voice soft. 

“You sure you want me to stay longer, after that obscene raise you gave me?” Kara joked awkwardly. It felt like her heart was thudding up in her throat. Lena looked...unusually  _ small _ and so the blonde quickly nodded, “Yeah, yeah I’ll stay. I won’t bill you for overtime,” She cracked a smile and put her bag down on a barstool. She could text Alex to say she was going to be late.

"If you did, it would be nothing less than you deserve." Lena did her best to return Kara's warm smile, and there was nothing she could do to ignore the way Kara's presence seemed to make everything feel more at peace.

The truth was, her mother's impromptu visit to her office had shaken her to her core. Nothing good could come of her mother poking around in her business, in Lena's experience. And there was something about the way Lillian spoke about Lex that made her skin crawl. 

Selfishly, she wanted Kara near her, if nothing else than for a small sliver of normalcy.

"I was about to make myself some tea, would you like any?" She moved farther into the kitchen, reaching for the kettle she kept on the stove.

"Uh, yes, I suppose I'll have some. As long as it's no trouble," Kara nodded. She did appreciate that Lena seemed to have such a high opinion of her. It did make Kara feel good to know she exceeded expectations in such a way. "Was there something you needed me to do, Lena? I don't have to replace the reactor again already do I?" Kara faked some fear with an exaggerated look before she smiled. She pulled out her phone and shot a quick message to her sister and then put it away so that Lena would have her full attention.

Lena laughed, and not the official CEO laugh. A real, honest burst of laughter that left her feeling a little exposed. "No, it's in perfect working order. Thank you for that, again."

She filled the kettle up slowly, replacing it on its burner at full heat. She busied herself by pulling down mugs, unconsciously pulling out her favorites. One had a small chip near the handle and a large, cartoonish atom on the side, and the other she suspected was handmade, painted with small boats. It made sense that Kara would expect a reason to stay late. A work reason, one that Lena did not have.

Her hands stilled on the jar of loose leaf tea, and she glanced at Kara over her shoulder, view blocked partially by her own loose hair. "Honestly, I was hoping you'd be willing to stay as a friend."

The words felt like a wave of warmth and they filled Kara nearly to the brim with joy. Lena wanted her to stay as a  _ friend _ . "Of course, Lena. I would be delighted to stay," The blonde responded enthusiastically and took a seat at the kitchen island on a free barstool and watched Lena prepare the tea.

"But if I'm officially staying as a friend, that does mean I get to nag you to eat your dinner, but in a friend way. Which I'll have you know is a much more insistent way than just as your assistant," Kara teased.

Lena smiled so widely she knew her dimples were showing. "You may have to help me eat it. You always bring me more food than one person could possibly hope to finish."

"You say that, you see, but you haven't seen me eat before. Alex, my sister, says once when we were little she remembers me eating an entire pizza all to myself. I don't remember, but the way I eat now, I believe it," Kara grinned and grabbed for the containers and started to pull them all out, "I like to get your favorites. That way I know you're going to eat at least  _ something _ or a little from all of it."

"An entire pizza?" Lena raised a disbelieving brow at Kara before turning to pull out two plates. "How old were you when you managed that?"

Utensils joined the plates, and Lena made sure she got a healthy serving of pad thai. The kettle whistled behind her, and soon they each had a mug of steaming tea to go with their dinner. Lena made sure Kara had the cup with the boats. 

"Eight...I think?" Kara said and served herself a smaller portion than she would normally in case Lena decided she wanted more later. "The Danvers' had just adopted me. Mom and dad had to go out but mom forgot her purse so Alex talked me into ordering pizza with her because we didn't want leftover meatloaf. Or that's how Alex tells it anyway," Kara shrugged and took a large bite, glad to be eating something since she hadn't since lunch.

Adopted. The word made Lena pause. "I didn't know you were adopted," she said quietly, a little unnerved.

Kara had been working for her for almost a year. Wasn't that the sort of thing she should have known they had in common by now? It shook her to realize she didn't know much about her assistant at all. 

"Oh I don't usually talk about it. I don't feel adopted. The Danvers' have always made sure I felt a part of their family. It probably helps I don't remember much from when I was young anyway. The earliest thing I can remember is waking up in a hospital. I had hit my head…" Kara's brows furrowed some and her fork lowered. Blurry visions of golden castles and a glittering sun came and went as she shook them off.

"I know that's not everyone's experience. A few kids were brought back to the orphanage because they weren't a 'good fit'. I remember how they looked when they came back. I was afraid, but Alex helped me to get over that," Kara blushed then. That was some pretty heavy talk to just dump on Lena without warning. "I'm sorry, that was a lot…"

Lena shook her head a little sadly, setting her fork aside in favor of cradling her tea. "No, it's… it's nice to hear that it works out for some adopted kids. That hasn't been my experience with it at all."

"Oh Lena, I'm  _ so _ sorry," Kara said and immediately put her fork down and turned in the barstool to look at the other woman. "I should have thought–been more sensitive. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories, Lena. I'm sorry," Kara breathed, brow wrinkled in concern. She should have thought about it before she opened her mouth. Of course Lena hadn't had a good experience being adopted. Look at Lillian. Kara knew how terrible she was to her now, the blonde could only imagine how terrible she had been in the past. She would have hugged her if Lena wasn't clasping her tea so tightly.

"Don't be sorry," Lena set her tea down, gingerly placing a hand on Kara's arm before pulling it back. "I'm glad to hear that not every adoption story is like mine. And it wasn't all bad, at first."

Kara smiled at the gesture. It made her feel warm. "Do you...want to talk about it?" She offered and took up the mug with the little ships on it and held it carefully. She took a sip and then made a face and set it back down, "You'll probably think I'm like twelve for asking this, but is there anyway I can get more sugar for this?"

"Oh! Of course. I should have offered." Lena slipped off her stool to get the sugar, trying hard to feel like she wasn't running away from some intimate moment. 

But it felt like one. No one had ever asked her about her childhood. Her experiences with most people had been about what she could do for them. With few exceptions, they had been treated as transactions. 

She handed Kara the sugar, which had been buried deep in the pantry. A relic from failed baking experiments. 

"My mother passed away when I was four," she found herself saying, much to her own surprise. "Lex was the only one who made me feel welcome. To Lionel, I think taking care of me made him feel less guilty. And Lillian… well, I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you that we've never seen eye to eye."

"I find it hard to believe she sees eye to eye with anyone, what with her high horse and all," Kara teased, knowing and hoping it would maybe pull out another one of those genuine laughs from Lena.

"It must have been very hard," she commented, "to know your family before. Do you remember much of your mother? If it's alright for me to ask that."

"I remember her singing, and that she always made me feel safe." Lena said softly, after taking a moment to recover from the little laugh that had escaped about Lillian. "I can't remember her face, anymore, but Lionel always said I looked so much like her." Lena shrugged her exposed shoulder, then tugged the shirt up to cover it with a flash of embarrassment.

"That's probably why Lillian never wanted a thing to do with me, truth be told. Who would want a reminder of their husbands infidelity rubbed in their face everyday?" The stool creaked gently underneath her as Lena sat again, eyes on her food.

The last thing she wanted was to see the pity in Kara's eyes. 

Kara put more sugar in her tea while she listened and tried not to make too many  _ clink _ noises while she stirred. "She should have been mad at him, not you. It's not your fault…" Kara took a sip and smiled, tea finally sweetened to her liking.

"You've done an incredible amount of things, Lena. And accomplished so much. I know she would be proud of you. I've only known you a little while now, but I am," Kara said honestly and then set into the rest of her food until she finished, not wanting to say anymore and upset Lena. Kara could tell the conversation was getting a little too heavy, and she knew Lena liked to keep things private.

"So, what does Lena Luthor do to relax?"

Valiantly ignoring the heat that had crept up her neck at Kara's praise, Lena managed to finish her own food without choking. She couldn't remember the last time someone had said they were proud of her, and it was embarrassing how deeply she reacted to the comment.

But Kara's follow up question moments later made her smile as if they were about to share a secret. "Would you like to see?" she asked coyly.

That  _ tone.  _ Kara nearly choked on her tea. Wait. No, she  _ did _ choke on her tea. The blonde coughed a couple of times and put the mug down as gently as she could manage, face red while she nodded. " _ Y-yes _ ...mmm, yeah, I'd love to see," Kara managed a smile, eyes glistening a little with moisture.

"If you're sure you're up for it," Lena patted Kara's back gently, "You can't spit tea in my lab." She let the mirth leech into her expression. 

"I'm sorry, I won't," Kara chuckled and nodded. She pushed off the barstool and straightened her clothes out, brushing off her shirt. "I'm ready.  _ Very _ curious to see what counts as relaxing for the busiest woman I know."

Leading the way back to the lab, Lena found herself suddenly wishing she were dressed in something slightly more presentable than worn, old sweatpants. It made heat rise up her neck again, for reasons that Lena would not give focus to. She willed herself to relax as they approached the door, and the arc reactor hummed gently in her chest as her heart raced.

"I've been working on it for weeks," she explained as she opened the door, "It's why I developed Hope, to help run the functions of the suit."

"Oh my  _ god _ !"

Kara pushed her tortoise glasses up a little further on her nose to better take in the sight of what could only be described as…"Lena, you made a metal suit?!" Kara looked at Lena with side surprised eyes and then back to the metallic grey titanium person shaped shell that one could only assume was meant to be worn like a knight would wear armor. It was smooth all over, crafted by machines with great care and no doubt Lena's expert guidance.

Kara found herself reaching out to touch it. She traced an empty circular glass covering in the center of the suit's chest with wonder before something seemed to click. "This is for  _ you _ ?!" Kara whirled around and took her hand away, "Lena, it's incredible, but what do you need this for?!"

"It's hard to fly without it." Lena shrugged with one shoulder, her sweater slipping off it again.

" _ Fly _ ?!" Kara couldn't even hide her shock. The word even came out as a bark of a laugh. "Lena, why do you need to fly? Be serious. What is this thing?"

Lena hesitated, unsure that she'd made the right choice in showing Kara the Mark 2. She knew it was only a matter of time before Kara would see it, and question what she was doing, "It's a long story," she said, gesturing for Kara to take a seat on Lena's preferred stool. "You might want to sit down."

Kara sat as instructed, noticing Lena seemed to be in a tender state. She would need to listen and be open and careful so she didn't, for lack of a better metaphor, scare her away like a startled animal. "It's okay, Lena. I'm listening, no judgement."

For a moment, Lena just stared at her assistant, perched on a stool in Lena's personal lab, eyes wide and honest. She took in the way that Kara was angled toward her, all of her attention focused on the CEOs face. Bright blue eyes tracked her as she started to pace, fingers coming up to fiddle with the ends of her hair. It was a habit from childhood, one that had been quickly and severely corrected.

"Her name was Sam," she started, her throat closing around the words so that she had to force them out. "She was an investigator for the embassy…" 

Once she started, she couldn't stop, words flowing faster than she could think of them. She told Kara about being drugged, about the cave, the weapons, Emir's demands, and eventually, the surgery that forced her to build the arc reactor, and then the suit. She talked for what felt like hours, until her mouth was dry and the words ran out. 

When she finally finished, she stood awkwardly in front of Kara, and gave her shoulders a little, helpless shrug. "I have to go back. I have to see -"

A familiar pair of strong arms wrapped tightly around Lena then. Kara held her close for several seconds, just letting the other woman hopefully feel secure or safe. The blonde had heard it but she still couldn't imagine it herself. The fact that Lena was standing here was more of a miracle and a healthy dose of tenacity than Kara had realized.

"I am  _ so _ sorry," Kara said and gave another squeeze before she pulled back in case Lena was uncomfortable. The last time she had done this the woman had asked her to leave.

Lena felt her eyes well with emotion and closed them tight, giving in to the desire to step back into the circle of Kara's arms, pressing her face against the collar of Kara's shirt. 

When she felt Lena come back in, Kara held her tight again. One hand splayed out on her back and rubbed gently out of habit. Her other hand held the back of Lena's head gently. Kara stood firm as she heard crying.

"Hey, it's okay. It's gonna be okay."

"How can you say that, Kara?" Lena's voice was muffled against Kara's shoulder, wet and broken. "I just left her there!" She tried to take a deep breath but it shook, and Lena made a desperate noise of frustration, pulling back but not out of Kara's embrace. Guiltily, she didn't want to break the tenuous connection between them. 

"I just left her to die. I just can't - I can't ignore that," she looked up at Kara, several inches shorter than the blonde without her typical heels, "I feel like I'm in a million pieces and I can't keep them together."

"Well...Lena Luthor, that's what you have assistants and friends for," Kara said honestly and took a long look at the woman before her. Kara thought it had broken her heart to see her when she had walked off that plane, but it was doing it again now, seeing Lena in this much pain. "To keep track of some of the pieces for you."

Kara continued to rub her back, "It has to be okay... because I just believe it will. I had to believe it was okay when you were gone and you came back. You have to believe it, even if it's hard. Otherwise...it wasn't worth it. You did what you had to do. The only one faulting you for that is yourself."

Lena gave a wet little laugh, scrubbing a hand across her face. "You have so much optimism. Sometimes I wonder how differently the world looks to you." 

_ It looks pretty good right now _ , Kara mused as she let herself stand there and take Lena in. Her eyes drifted over her face and she sighed, "It's not the world, Lena. It's how  _ you _ see it. If you're always cup half empty then…" Kara shrugged, a frown appearing. She had been cup half empty recently. "It's hard work being a cup half full kind of person and you'll fall down some, but you'll be happier. The alternative is you live your life afraid," Kara gave Lena's arms a squeeze and a soft smile, "and I don't think someone as incredible as you deserves to live that way. You're too strong for that."

Something fluttered low in Lena's stomach, and she flushed, color creeping up her neck to ride high on her cheeks. It was too hard to look at Kara's face when she was looking at her like that, and Lena could feel the press of her assistant's hand like a searing brand on her back. Green eyes flitted away from Kara's face, down to the collar of her shirt, now crumpled and tear stained. 

"Oh…" Lena's hands came up to smooth the material, the backs of her fingers just brushing the soft skin of Kara's neck as she did. It hit her like electricity, and Lena's eyes snapped back up to Kara's face.

The blonde's face was pink and steadily getting ever redder. Lena holding her gaze like  _ that _ . Kara swallowed hard, finding her mouth dry. The lights in Lena's lab began to flicker. The hand on Lena's back slowly pulled away and Kara let some distance come between them. She could feel it, the panic slowly creeping up, fueling the burning in her cheeks and more distinctly in one other place in particular.

"It's okay…" she breathed, voice uneasy. Her hands had moved to Lena's arms but she couldn't seem to pull herself any further away.

"Kara…" Something warred in Lena's eyes, the fight between desire and propriety. Fingers gripped the collar of Kara's shirt momentarily, and Lena's gaze flicked down to her lips briefly before Lena forced herself to let go. She smoothed her hands over the material again, teasing away the wrinkles, and took a deep, unsteady breath as she stepped back out of Kara's reach.

Instantly, she felt cold and unsure. "I don't…" she floundered for words, "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable." 

" _ No _ ," Kara cleared her throat to try again, "No, it's fine. I'm fine." She smoothed down her shirt even after Lena fixed it, just for the lack of something to do. Her whole body felt alight and buzzing. She looked down at her watch to distract herself and found the screen was cracked. Kara sighed a little when she saw that and the time.

"I'm supposed to be bringing pizza home for Alex so...are you good now? I can stay longer if you need me to?"

Was she good now? Lena was still humming from Kara's touch, the small of her back hot where Kara's hand had rested. More now than before, Lena felt her million pieces scatter to the wind.

Instead of saying any of those things, Lena's expression smoothed into her unreadable CEO mask and she gave Kara a thin, professional smile. "No, of course. I've kept you long enough. Goodnight, Kara."

"Goodnight, Lena," Kara gave a soft smile and then made her way to the exit of the lab. She stopped in the doorway, pausing probably longer than was necessary and then turned back around to face her boss and her friend, "You'll...tell me before you try to use that thing, won't you?"

Lena's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Of course, Kara."

_____

It was already nine forty-five and Lena had a meeting in fifteen minutes. Kara had dropped off her coffee at eight like usual and then had come to the office to get started on all the work she was sure was to be waiting for her. Only, Lena's appointment was already here, pleasantly waiting in a seat in the lobby across from Kara's desk. 

The representative from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division had been lovely to deal with this morning. Kara had been pleasantly surprised as usually Lena's appointments were men and a lot less nice to Kara. She pulled out her phone and shot a quick, concise, and professional message to her boss.

**Your 10am is here** .

Lena's phone vibrated harshly in her bag as the CEO marched purposefully through the lobby on the ground floor of L Corp. This day was already not going her way. 

She had stumbled in her kitchen and spilled the coffee that Kara had left for her that morning, causing her to need to change her clothes for the fourth time that day. It had already taken her too long to get ready, and more outfits than she cared to admit were currently thrown about her bedroom. It shouldn't matter what she wore, she reminded herself. She was Kara's boss, not some foolish teenager trying to impress her crush.

As if that hadn't been enough to sour her mood, her tardiness in leaving the penthouse had caused Bill to get them stuck in traffic. She knew it wasn't his fault, but her irritation grew all the same.

Safely in the elevator, Lena fished her phone out and glared at the text message on the screen.

Of course. She would have exactly no time to compose herself before being thrown to the wolves.

Lena rolled her eyes at her own dramatics, and the elevator dinged cheerily as it deposited her on her office floor.

Three steps down the hallway, her bag fell heavily to the floor, the contents spilling out to roll toward Kara's desk.

"Sam?"

"Hey, Iron-Maiden."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for all the love!
> 
> Please come yell at us on tumblr:
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> bandwidthlimit
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> happypugstuff


	6. Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take note of the new rating and the new tags my friends. Proceed at your own discretion. ;)

Sam stood up when the elevator _ dinged _ down the hallway, more than a little anxious to see Lena Luthor again, but easily composed. She straightened her suit and turned her head to look when she noticed the assistant at the desk turn hers.  _ The impassioned blonde _ , Sam noted with a grin to herself.

As she watched Lena drop her purse and the entire contents spill out for everyone in the nearby area to see she smiled even wider. Seeing her done up in all her CEO glory was certainly different from seeing her clad in iron and steel.

"Hey, Iron-Maiden."

The blonde, stunned at first both by Lena's declaration and the spilling of her purse, sprung into action and began to collect the things closer to her desk in an effort to help.

For a moment, Lena stood frozen, eyes wide and staring at Sam. She took a cautious step forward, like she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"You're alive," she finally whispered, standing a few feet from Sam.

"It would appear so, yes," Sam answered teasingly, still holding a smile, "Would you like to talk about it in your office, Lena? Or would you prefer to stare at me some more?"

Kara didn't really appreciate the teasing tone Agent Arias was taking with Lena and the blonde busied herself by gathering up the rest of her boss's belongings and put them back into her purse. So this was Sam. Sam Arias.  _ The _ Sam. Kara supposed it was an enormous relief for Lena to know she was alive, and even more of a surprise to see her standing before her. Kara tried to calm her uglier feelings and just be happy for Lena that she could receive some closure. Now at least she wouldn't need to use that suit she made for anything.

"I don't know why I ever missed you," Lena sounded like she was on the verge of laughing, unable to stop the wide smile that spread across her face, dimples flashing. 

The contents of her bag clattered as Kara righted it, and the noise caused Lena to turn toward her assistant. Everything about Lena's posture had changed since seeing Sam. It was like her strings had been cut, and the tension that once held her so upright was nowhere to be found. She turned relieved eyes on Kara. "Sam, this is Kara, my -" she paused, trying to pick the right words, "Assistant, and dear friend."

"Ah yes, the  _ assistant _ ," Sam said with a smile, putting emphasis on the last word. She stuck out her hand for Kara to shake, "I've heard a little about you! Saw the press release you did while Lena was missing! That was  _ some _ speech!"

Kara took her hand and forced a smile. Why did she say 'assistant' like  _ that _ . Her face did get a little red at the mention of her speech to the press. It had been...well it had been quite passionate. "Lovely to meet you. Thank you for helping Lena."

"All in a day's work," Sam shrugged and they shook hands for a moment before Sam pulled hers away and gave it a shake and a stretch. "Quite the grip you have Kara! Lena, I  _ did _ come for actual business I'm afraid. We need to have a talk."

Lena had almost forgotten how Sam could bowl someone over with just her words. She watched the interaction curiously. Kara's stiff posture and fake smile were the same she used on Lillian, and Lena couldn't fathom why she would direct it to Sam.

"Of course," Lena reached out for her bag, her fingers dragging along Kara's wrist as she took it. "Head in, Sam. I'll be right there."

Sam nodded and headed into the office and situated herself in a chair across from Lena's desk, making herself at home.

Kara watched Sam head into the office, face a little heated. Her wrist practically burned where Lena's fingers had touched her but Kara told herself it was probably just an accident. Lena was distracted. She just found out her friend was alive. Kara felt terrible...and terribly green. 

Lena watched Sam waltz into her office like she owned it. She still couldn't quite believe the agent was here. And alive! 

She didn't turn away until the door shut. Lena turned wide eyes to Kara, trying and failing to school her expression into anything other than shock. "Kara, what… are you sure that Sam is the representative from… what was it again?"

"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division," Kara answered and nodded, "Yes. Someone called yesterday to set up a meeting with you. They didn't say who was coming. And then she came in and had a badge and everything," Kara answered, curious, but tried to hide it. It wasn't her business…not yet anyway.

"What a mouthful." Lena gave her eyes a little roll, turning her full attention back to Kara.

After their moment the night before, Lena was at a loss. She wasn't sure how to talk to Kara right now, and it felt like her opportunity to be strictly business had been blown out of the window.

She decided, instead, to take another route. "I have something I have to admit to," she said seriously.

Kara's brows furrowed immediately and she paused, confused now more than curious, "Yeah? Are you...okay?" She asked hesitantly, unsure of what Lena had to admit. It made her nervous.

"I spilled the coffee you brought me all over myself this morning." 

"Oh... _ oh _ ! I'm sorry. Do you need me to get you another one? I hope you didn't burn yourself," Kara spewed quickly, feeling more than little dumb for thinking it could be anything else.

"Please! You are my only hope for making it through today." Lena let her voice drop, just enough to give the words a hint of deeper meaning.

If the professional route was out, she wasn't entirely above taking the low road.

"Absolutely," Kara smiled wide, relaxing now, her stiff posture she had with Sam fully dissipated. "Go now, you're already late for the meeting as it is. I'll bring it up as soon as I can," the blonde said and gave another smile, genuine. The little praise made her feel good, and this time Kara didn't tell herself it was only because she was a good assistant.

Lena reached out and deliberately gave Kara's wrist a lingering squeeze. "You're my hero. Feel free to interrupt."

Kara tried to contain the swell of emotion she felt at the little touch, but it showed some on her face and neck, the latter of which got a little red. "I'll be back soon," Kara nodded adamantly and went to grab her bag from her desk and then she rushed out of the office, a woman on a mission.

Sam had gotten a little bored waiting for Lena so she took a little walk around her office, snooping out of curiosity. She came back around and eyed Lena's desk with a grin. The agent took a staged seat in Lena's desk chair, legs crossed and sitting back comfortably like it was her own office and not that of a friend.

When Lena came back in for their meeting, she swiveled around dramatically with a wide smile, "Yeah, so  _ she's _ cute."

"You're insufferable." Lena rounded her desk with a smile, thwacking Sam on the arm with her bag. "Get out of there."

"But you missed me, looks like," Sam quipped right back but got out of the chair like Lena asked. She crossed over and sat in the chair she had first been in, across from Lena. "Before you ask the questions I know you want to ask, let me ask you one," Sam said, more serious, and crossed her legs.

She leveled her eyes with Lena, holding her gaze for several seconds. "So you  _ crashed _ your own funeral?!"

Lena smirked at her as she settled into her seat, eyebrow raised teasingly. "I couldn't very well skip it, could I?"

She pulled out the files she had brought home the night before. She spread them out over the desk, and left her hands on top of them as she stared Sam down.

"Now if you wouldn't mind explaining to me how you're alive, much less on my schedule today."

"It's not as long of a story as it is going to sound," Sam said, trying to be as straightforward as possible, "not long after you got airborne, I took a radio off of one of those thugs you wrecked with that iron suit of yours, and got out of there as fast as I could manage. Which, I'll be honest, wasn't terribly fast. I tried every channel, sending out a distress call for each one until some agents from the DSS picked it up. I was pretty far gone when they got to me, but I told them what you had done, and what you left in," Sam said seriously. This time she really did level Lena with a look, "That's how they found you. An unidentified flying aircraft was spotted entering Syria from the north. The rest is pretty fuzzy for me, not going to lie. I was set up in the hospital for a few days when these guys from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division showed up and wanted to ask me some questions. You can imagine my surprise when they had legitimate government badges and everything. You know, a division I've never even heard of," Sam rolled her eyes.

"They asked a lot of questions about you and I don't know if it was the drugs I was on or my ingrained inability to resist government authority," Sam winked, "but I answered honestly. I told them about the suit. They asked me a lot of questions I couldn't answer about it. When I was released and cleared for work, I was informed I had been transferred back to New York...under the Strategic Homeland Interven–ugh, you get the idea. So, I work for them now. It came with a huge pay upgrade and I can't say I'm upset about it. And so, here I am. And I've been sent to persuade you to work for us too." 

It was a lot to take in. She was thrilled to see Sam alive and in good health. Lena was even happy for her that she'd managed to not only be transferred back to New York, but earned a raise on top of it.

And yet, her story made Lena want to squirm in her chair, something she hadn't done since she was a child. 

She was missing something, she could feel it. 

The silence stretched between them, and Lena opened a folder in front of her. There was no work to be done in it, but Sam didn't know that. 

"I'm not interested in any government contracts," Lena said mildly, her tone disinterested. It was the voice that made her lead engineers cringe.

"Oh, Lena," Sam began and shook her head. She leaned forward in her seat, "It's not like  _ that _ . You would still be here, doing what you are doing now," the agent gestured to Lena's desk. "You wouldn't have to sign any part of L Corp to it. You could keep up all your humanitarian efforts. Nothing would be different," Sam said, allowing a brief pause to fall between them. It implied a ' _ but _ ' was coming. 

"They're only interested in the suit, Lena. The one you made was crude, yes, but it has a lot of potential–"

"I said no, Sam." The mild tone was gone, replaced by something harder. "I'm sure you caught the press release - L Corp doesn't manufacture weapons anymore, and neither do I."

It wasn't quite a lie, Lena told herself. There was nothing on the suit in her lab that she had designed solely to hurt. 

"Alright,  _ alright _ ," Sam threw her hands up and sat back in the chair with a sigh. If she was disappointed it didn't show on her face. "At least I can tell them I tried when they ask me how it went. I'm sorry to come in here business first and for shocking you I was even here at all."

Lena pasted a polite smile across her face, one that hid the hurt that had started to fester. She had wanted so badly to believe that Sam was here as a friend, that they could even be friends, after what they'd been through together. They had an easy camaraderie, and Sam had seen her at her absolute worst. 

There was no lower than being attached to a filthy car battery, after all.

And yet, here it was, another visit with someone she had hoped could be a friend, who turned out to just want something from her. Another transaction. 

Her eyes pricked, and she ignored it staunchly. She had cried more in the last week then she had in the last decade, and she was not about to do it at work.

"I suppose you can. Is that everything you needed, Agent?"

" _ Agent _ , hmm," Sam did frown this time, "Don't be mad, Lena. It was me or someone else and whoever that someone else would have been would not have accepted a no. I'm not the bad guy here. I'm your friend."

"As a friend, you should have known I'd say no before you set foot in my building." Lena gave her a pointed look.

"I did, but it was my job to try," Sam said with a sigh and stood up, "I  _ did _ want to see you. To see how you were doing, because we are friends and we went through something unspeakably shitty together. I'm in town for the foreseeable future, so if you want to hang out, no strings, then your assistant has my number." 

Sam made her exit, pushing the office doors open just as Kara was about to open them and come inside. She nearly spilled Lena's new coffee all over herself too but she balanced in time and side stepped Agent Arias as she left. Kara narrowed her eyes a little. That meeting had been unusually quicker than the blonde had anticipated.

Kara pushed inside the office and held up the coffee, "Got your coffee. You alright? That was over pretty fast…"

Lena deflated, slumping back into her chair. She put a hand over her eyes and took a deep breath before she sat up again, focusing her attention on Kara. "That was too much to process before coffee."

"I'm sorry," Kara frowned, mentally berating herself some for having taken so long. She quickly brought the coffee over and set it in front of Lena, "there was a longer line this time and a wait because they didn't already have it ready like they usually do. I'll bring you a backup tomorrow in case it happens again."

"You don't have to do that," Lena offered Kara a warm smile, "You were wonderful, as always."

The first sip of coffee settled like a balm over wounds Lena hadn't realized she'd had. "And this is perfect, thank you. I'll need one more thing before we move on with the day."

Kara beamed as always with the praise, "And what is that?"

"I'll need you to keep Agent Arias and anyone else from her agency from booking any appointments in the building. I don't care what they say, or what they ask, the answer is no, and it will not change. Coordinate with security, and send out a company wide memo that any communication with them will need to be screened by you."

Kara was surprised by that and her eyebrows raised a little to give that away before she nodded quickly, "Of course, Miss Luthor. I'll write it up right away." Kara turned to leave, since it seemed urgent and something Lena wanted done as soon as possible but she stopped when she got to the door. She probably shouldn't ask. They were in the office, not in Lena's penthouse, but kindness overroad professionalism, "Did it not go well with your friend?"

Lena's face twisted with pain, "I don't know that she was ever my friend."

_____

"Hope, run preflight analysis on all systems." 

She wasn't sure what time it was. Kara had been and gone already, having stayed long enough to make sure Lena at least took a few bites of the dinner she had helpfully supplied. 

"Yes, Miss Luth-or." Hope's nebulous hourglass quivered as it spoke, voice slightly jilted. The AI was learning fast, but it hadn't quite managed to mimic human speech patterns yet. "All systems are in working order."

"Thank you, Hope." Lena glanced at the clock in the corner of the lab. Slightly after one in the morning.

"Are you going to run more tests, Miss Luth-or?"

Lena pulled her hair back into a quick ponytail, "No, Hope. I think it's time we take it for a spin."

"Should I alert Miss Kara?" Lena smiled. It was as close as Kara could get the system to using her first name, and Lena knew it rankled her assistant that Hope wouldn't budge.

She had programmed her to be polite, after all.

"I think we should let her sleep." 

"Miss Kara specifically asked me to alert her before you test flight." The hourglass burbled.

Of course she had. Lena rolled her eyes with a burst of affection. 

"Hope,  _ I  _ am specifically telling you to ignore that request."

"Yes, Miss Luth-or."

She glanced around the room again, "Okay," she gave a little bounce on her heels, "Let's do this. Initiate donning process."

"Donning process initiated."

Lena blew out a deep breath, stepping onto the platform she had finished just the day before. Behind her, the suit shifted, mechanical arms from the ceiling began to assemble the suit to her.

What was the point in being a billionaire without a fully functioning robotics lab?

As the faceplate locked into place over her, Lena felt a flash of claustrophobia before the HUD lit up in front of her. "Okay, Hope, you with me?"

"I am here, Miss Luth-or." Hope's voice sounded directly in her ear, and Lena jerked at the closeness.

"Volume down, Hope. No screaming in here."

"Yes, Miss Luth-or."

"Okay, we're gonna start this slow. Thrusters at 1%, I just want a little hover."

She felt the suit gear up, and the small amount of thrust made her feel like gravity was lightening, but not letting go. "Not enough. Increase to 5%."

The first step she took felt like a bounce, and Lena let it take her across the lab to the large windows that faced the city. She fumbled metal fingers for a moment, cursing her lack of foresight for not opening the window before she got in the suit. When it finally slid open, she gave a triumphant grin. 

"Now or never. Increase thrusters for flight, Hope."

She launched out of the window with a surprised whoop, wishing for a moment she could feel the wind on her face. "Keep an ear on ATC for me, I don't want to run into any planes."

"Of course, Miss Luth-or."

Lena shot herself vertically, eyes turned skyward. This flight was already a roaring success, she knew. Realistically, she should return to the lab and store all of the diagnostics on her private servers. But it was freeing to be mid air with no one in control but her.

"Hope, what's the SR71's record?"

"The altitude record for fixed wing flight is 85 thousand feet."

She grinned wildly, still gaining altitude. "Records are meant to be broken, Hope."

Higher and higher they flew, until Hope's volume modified voice said, "There is a potentially fatal build up of ice occurring, Miss Luthor."

Lena only gave a brief pause at the right intonation of her name before she shook it off, "Just a little higher, Hope."

The suit slowed, and Lena heard it when she bent to look toward her feet. The unmistakable sound of cracking ice. Panic shot through her, and she cursed her own pride for not listening. "Deploy flaps, we have to break this ice."

"Flaps frozen, Miss Luthor. We are losing altitude."

"I know, I know," Lena clawed at the flaps she could reach, metal screeching as they dropped. When one finally broke free, she twisted to the other side, ice cracking as she scrabbled for the other. 

And suddenly, they leveled off. It hit her like a train, and Lena felt the wind get knocked out of her. "Hope. Diagnostics."

"Flaps deployed, Miss Luthor. Suit functions not suitable for high altitude. Power at -"

"Just get us home."

_____

_ A world wrought of fire and chaos. The earth upheaved itself in the calamity, towers of gold crumbling like a house of cards. Shouting. So much shouting. The groan of the ground as it tore itself asunder in flames. The very air boiled. _

_ Shifting images of ornately crafted mosaics cracking, fragmenting, shattering thousands of years of a detailed history. Screaming. The throne of the universe misshapen, melting for the heat. Gold oozing down marbled steps like magma. The sundering of the earth. A reality cleaved apart. A crack of lightning. _

_ Her name on the wind. A scream. _

Kara shot upright in bed, t-shirt and hair clinging to her wet with sweat. Her pillow was drenched. Eyes, wide in the dark, took too long to adjust, unable to focus. And she couldn't  _ breathe _ . A hand came up to clutch at the front of her shirt as if the action would make room for the air she couldn't find in her lungs. Her throat ached for being parched.

"Kara?" Alex burst into the room, alarmed. Her hair stood up in a rat's nest, exposing the shaved sides, and her eyes were wild with panic. She took a quick glance around the room to make sure nothing was amiss before joining her sister on the bed, reaching out to pull Kara into a tight hug.

"You're okay," she breathed, rubbing Kara's sticky back. "It's just another nightmare."

A nightmare. Then why did it feel like she was still burning? 

It took a few minutes and more soothing words for the blonde to finally relax and find even breath again. She'd had this nightmare before. Several times. In fact, it was the only one she ever had, but it had been coming less and less frequently with childhood. To have it occur out of the blue was troubling, but Kara could now separate dreams from reality. That hadn't always been the case.

"I'm sorry, Alex…," Kara whispered when she was finally calm enough to speak. She gently pulled back out of her sister's embrace and sat back against the headboard, "I'm sorry for waking you. I thought I was done with this."

_ Bzzz. Bzzz. _

The screen of Kara's phone woke up, bathing them in soft white light, but the blonde ignored it, still not quite herself.

"It's okay, Kar. You know it doesn't bother me." Alex gave her sister another squeeze before sitting back.

The phone buzzed again, and Alex leaned over to look at it. "Who's Hope, and why is she texting you at one in the morning?"

"Hope?" Kara groaned and reached for her phone, "She's Lena's new AI...I think it's unnecessary but–" Kara stopped and groaned when she read the message, "Crap! Alex, I need to go!" 

Kara threw off her blanket and slung her feet out of bed and started to get dressed as quickly as she could, only pulling on some jeans, a different t-shirt, and a jacket. She bounced out of the room, still pulling on one of her shoes as she shouted another apology to Alex and shot out of the apartment with nothing but her clothes and her keys.

_____

  
  


Lena was slumped on her work stool, tipped forward onto her desk with her head braced in her hands. Behind her, robotic arms whirred as they took apart the Mark 2, and the cursor on her laptop screen blinked at the end of her written report of the test flight. Hope's blue light seemed to shiver next to her, but Lena paid it no mind.

At least, she paid it no mind until she heard the familiar sound of Kara's voice calling her name from the living room. She narrowed her eyes at the shivering hourglass.

"What did you do?" 

"I alerted Miss Kara to our descent." Hope replied helpfully. Lena groaned.

"Lena? Are you alright?" Kara was still shouting, even as she came Into the lab and turned the corner to find her boss and her friend, sitting there, half in and half out of her metal suit that was presently being deconstructed by robots.

"You  _ told _ me you'd tell me  _ before _ you tried it!"

"I didn't want to wake you," Lena sighed, sticking a leg out for the robotic arm to remove the shin guard of her suit. "And I'm fine, Kara, see?" She held her arms out wide to prove she was in one piece.

Kara's eyes narrowed, disbelieving somehow and she crossed her arms, keys still dangling from her hand, "You could have not been. And I was already awake." The blonde yawned then despite wanting to look serious.

"Look Lena, you said this thing was to help you go find Sam, and as I recall, Sam was alive and well in your office three days ago. So was that a lie? And if it wasn't, why do you even need this thing now?"

Lena had the good grace to look ashamed, and as the last piece of the suit was removed, she stood, needing to put a little more distance between herself and her irate assistant. "It wasn't a lie," she started slowly. "I'm not sure how to explain it."

"Can you try?" Kara asked, voice a little more desperate than she would have liked. "I'm not angry, Lena. I'm just worried. I would like to understand, if you'll help me."

A thousand explanations flew through her mind and Lena tended, her fingers digging into her arms where she gripped them in front of herself. "I don't know where to start," she finally admitted, hating the way the words came out broken.

Weak. Afraid. All the things she had been trained her whole life to never be.

_ Don't let them see you sweat _ , Lex used to tell her.  _ Luthor's are better than that. _

"I stopped weapons manufacturing because it was the right thing to do. As a company, we were hurting people, not helping them. And it was lucrative - we've lost so much funding since that move, Kara, I don't think you know how hard that's hit us. But it was the right thing. What we do now, we can help people! We can, and we will, make a difference into the world."

Lena paused, trying to force some calm into her voice. "Change is slow. Too slow. There are still Luthor Corp weapons out there, and they won't go away until they're used. Or, until someone makes them."

Kara was definitely too tired to be trying to process all of this. "And  _ you're _ going to make them, Lena? As this?" Kara gestured over to the suit which had been reassembled in it's display. "That's not the way to do that and I think you know that."

Lena no longer had to search for calm. It settled itself over her like an icy blanket. Her spine straightened, and she lifted her chin in defiance. "With all due respect, Kara, you can't stop me from doing it."

That hurt. Kara recoiled from the words, stiffening like she had with Sam, "Don't worry, I'm not dumb enough to ask you not to do it. I know how stubborn you are and that you'd do it anyway. I was naive enough to ask you if you'd tell me next time,  _ before _ you use the suit but…" Kara shrugged, "Now I don't want to know. Have fun doing whatever it is that you want to do. I'll see you at eight am. You have a meeting at nine," Kara said a little bitterly, and she felt it. She should have just stayed in bed.

The blonde left the lab and then left the flat. She didn't even have her phone to tell Alex she was coming home.

Lena crumpled, dropping onto the floor heavily. She stared at the spot Kara had been standing for a long moment, and only stirred when the AI at her desk began to speak. 

"Miss Luthor, I-"

"Power down, Hope." Lena said emotionlessly. She watched the hourglass dim, following her command, and she instantly felt worse.

This was her fault. If she hadn't had so much damn pride, she would have let Hope alert Kara before she'd even taken off. If she hadn't backed herself into a corner, and reacted without thinking, Kara would still be here, would still be talking to her.

Now, she wasn't even sure if Kara would actually come into the office tomorrow. In one fell swoop, she had likely lost the best (the only, she corrected herself bitterly) friend that she had, as well as her assistant. 

Somehow, she would have to fix this. 

_____

Despite her rough night and another hour of just crying into one of her sister's hugs, punctual as ever, Kara's key was turning the lock of Lena's penthouse at exactly eight am. She slipped in, dropped off the coffee and a few folders. One folder being the prep for Lena's meeting the next hour. All the notes held distinctly less flair than usual. No smiley faces in the corners. No "don't forget to breathe"'s. Just professional remarks, a few grammar catches. 

The assistant left as quickly as she came, sneaking back out before Lena could notice, Kara assumed. She went to the office. She did her work. She did  _ not _ cry.

A secondary replacement coffee was on Lena's office desk in case she spilled the first one. Her greeting in the morning when Lena arrived was a brief, "Good morning, Miss Luthor," and beyond that, Kara didn't speak. Luckily Lena didn't need her much during the day. She was surprised by lunch on her desk when she returned from making some copies of the invitations for the Third Annual Luthor Benefit for the Firefighter Family Fund. She ate it, sticky note that read "I'm sorry – L" in the trash along with some shredded documents.

It soured her a little to think that Lena thought she could buy Kara back with food. Granted it was good food, but it wasn't like Lena had gotten her favorite. She didn't even know her favorite. That was the sort of thing friends should know, but maybe they weren't friends. It had been a delusion of an idiot in love. 

In the evening, Kara sent out memos and prepped Lena for her next day with a very clear and concise list of all her appointments. More than that seemed beyond Kara's ability to muster. She went home. She  _ did _ cry. At least until Alex got home. Thankfully the older woman did not make her talk about it, accepting the shakey " _ adrenaline _ ," with a grain of salt. They ate popcorn for dinner and watched  _ How I Met Your Mother _ on Netflix. Then Kara went to bed. She had more nightmares.

_____

She didn't want to admit it was killing her. Lena missed Kara's wide, easily given smile. She missed the unrestrained laughter she could typically elicit with a well timed quip. She missed the silly little doodles included with her daily schedule, and that sense that they shared something outside of a boss/employee dynamic.

Lena missed her friend, and she wasn't quite sure how to fix it.

She knew Kara had accepted the lunch she'd provided, but she knew the note had landed in the trash. It hurt more than she cared to think about.

It also left her little option. One meal would obviously not cut it. She would have to up the ante a bit.

_____

  
  


Kara's morning began anew in much the same fashion as the last. She was beyond tired, still having gotten no sleep. She had woken Alex again and apologized despite her sister saying it was fine, again. Same nightmare. Same screaming. Same crying session. Same waking up exhausted a few hours later.

She delivered Lena's coffee to her penthouse along with documents. She withheld any doodles she may or may not have wanted to draw. She went to the office. It was basically like groundhog day, except, apart from the bouquet of plumeria sitting front and center on her desk.

Kara couldn't honestly help it. She flushed first, from clavicle all the way to forehead, before she shook it off. Deft fingers pulled the card free and flipped it open. "Please forgive me…" Kara read quietly to herself, frowning at the ornately lettered apology which Lena definitely had not done herself. She knew what Lena's handwriting looked like. A part of her had hoped, at the sight of them, that maybe, just maybe, Lena had taken the time to do this herself. Another fool's errand. 

Kara dumped the card and put the vase of flowers behind her on top of one of the file cabinets and she carried on with her day. She did not say hello to Lena when she arrived, opting instead to simply verbally prepare her for her day, sans staple smile.

Again she found lunch waiting on her desk at lunch time, no note this time. She ate it willingly. She wasn't a monster. Who turned down food? Still, it didn't make Kara feel any better. It felt like Lena was just throwing money at a problem she could only solve with words. Words she said or wrote herself.

Kara wrapped up her day with a brisk goodbye and went home earlier than usual. She had asked permission of course, but only through an email which had been short and to the point. It was tearing her up inside, but, as she reminded herself, Lena was going to do whatever Lena wanted to do, and if that involved hurting herself or getting herself in serious trouble, Kara wanted no part of it. Lena had made it clear her opinion meant about as much as a handful of dirt. Probably less than.

The blonde got home and tried to relax. This of course led to her passed out on the couch by the time Alex got home, just trying to catch up on the sleep she had been missing.

Alex had tried to be quiet once she realized her sister was asleep. She knew something had happened with Lena. Her boss seemed to be the only reason Kara used  _ adrenaline _ to get out of a conversation anymore, and she knew Kara wouldn't talk to her about it until she was good and ready.

That didn't mean Alex enjoyed waiting.

She thought she was doing a pretty decent job of being quiet, shutting cabinets carefully behind her, until someone banged loudly on the front door.

"Shhh!" she hissed instinctually, rushing over to get the door. 

"Danvers, apartment 227B. I've got three pizzas here. A meat lovers, Cheese, and a Hawaiian. Is that right? Already been paid for. Here you go," the burly man took three large sized pizza boxes from his carrier and shoved them into Alex's arms.

The banging didn't wake Kara so much as the smell of pizza did. She came to, sitting up on the couch slowly, hair a mess and a bit of drool down the side of her mouth. "Alex?"

"Morning, sleeping beauty. Your pizzas are here."

"My pizzas?" Kara looked over the back of the couch, brow scrunched in sleepy confusion, "did you get us pizza? You're the best sister ever," Kara cooed and got up from the couch to get some plates.

"Uh, no. I wish I could take credit for this. If you didn't order them, who did?" 

It took Kara longer than it probably should have for her to realize what had happened. When she did, she groaned and put the plates down, "God...she  _ didn't _ …" 

Kara opened the first pizza once Alex had set them down. There, on the meat lovers, spelled out in pepperoni were two words: "I'm sorry."

"She did…" Kara sighed and it was filled with two whole days of feeling. It was like the sigh deflated her, any buoyancy she had recovered in sleep was gone. 

Alex stared at the pizza for a moment, trying to comprehend exactly what it was she was looking at. , "Jesus, Kara. I know you don't want to talk about it, but whatever it is is clearly bugging Lena, too."

"It should. It's her fault," Kara quipped and grabbed two slices to put on her plate and then put another directly in her mouth and went over to the couch. Half the slice was already gone before she turned on the TV and pulled up Netflix, " _ Parks and Recreation _ again? And no, I'm not going to talk about it. It's not really mine to talk about," Kara finished and motioned for Alex to come sit. "Just enjoy the free pizza."

_____

The next series of days went exactly the same and each day grated more and more on Kara's nerves. Lunch every day. An order of Chinese for dinner. An order of Thai food for dinner. More flowers when the ones behind her desk started to wilt. Each one still lacked that personal touch that Kara needed. It was exhausting.

An entire week of it and the blonde was ready to pull her hair out. The final straw fell when she had found a wrapped gift box waiting in front of her door, addressed to her, from Lena, in yet another person's handwriting. She had brought the box in and unwrapped it and had found a dress and a note that said, "For the fundraiser."

It was the last straw. The one that broke the camel's back. Kara was sick of this. She didn't want free lunch. She didn't want free dinner. She didn't want flowers. She didn't want gifts. The blonde put the dress back in the box, grabbed her bag and keys, and marched herself straight to Lena's penthouse across town.

She didn't even knock. Kara just used her key. She was so mad and so fed up she couldn't stand it. The lights flickered as she opened Lena's door.

" _ Lena _ ?!"

Kara placed the box containing the dress hard on the marble countertop.

"Kara?" Lena glanced down at herself and had a brief moment of panic. She had not been expecting company, and certainly not angry company. The MIT sweats were acceptable, but she was going to need something more than just her camisole.

She could practically feel Kara's tension in the air. There was no time to grab a sweater, and she knew Kara would come back to the lab if she waited much longer.

The tank top would have to do.

Feeling extraordinarily exposed, Lena left the lab behind her, making sure to pull the door shut. She fought the urge to fidget on the short walk to the kitchen, where she found Kara seething as she waited.

"I wasn't expecting you."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't expecting  _ this _ ," Kara gestured to the box, annoyance so bubbled over her brain didn't have any room to register Lena stood before her in sweatpants and a  _ tank top _ . "Lena, what the  _ hell _ ? Why did you buy me a dress? I swear to God, if you say it's for the fundraiser I'm going to lose it."

Lena visibly winced. "I had hoped to talk to you about it tomorrow," she hedged, hoping that if she didn't  _ explicitly _ say it, Kara wouldn't lose her temper.

"I can afford my own clothes, Lena. And my lunches,  _ and _ my dinners,  **_and_ ** Alex's dinner. What else are you planning to buy me, Lena? Nevermind, I don't care. Stop buying me things. I don't need them, okay? You can't throw money and second hand apologies at me and expect things to go back to normal," Kara gushed.

She had opened her mouth to tell Kara she'd had half a mind to buy her apartment building and never charge her rent before Kara's words made her snap her lips closed. "Second hand apologies?" Lena repeated, not understanding. "What about it was second hand?" 

So far as she knew, she had been quite clear with every instruction.

"You  _ bought _ them, Lena," Kara sighed, eyes rolling up to look at the ceiling, exasperated. "You told the words to someone  _ else _ to tell me for you. I don't want it spelled out in pepperonis. I don't want it on a note card attached to some flowers in someone else's hand. I want it on a sticky note from your office in  _ your _ handwriting. I want you to look me in the eye and say it to my face yourself," Kara sucked in a breath. It was shaky and accompanied by a wetness in her cheeks she had grown familiar with. She was just  _ so _ tired and now she was crying in front of Lena.

" _ Geeze… _ " Kara wiped at her eyes. This was so stupid. She shouldn't have come here. Lena was never going to get it because Kara couldn't tell her. "I'm sorry. I'll just go–"

"Kara, I am so sorry." The words escaped her in a rush, cutting off whatever Kara had been about to say. "I don't - I'm not accustomed to caring about someone enough to need to genuinely apologize." Lena took a hesitant step forward, wanting to take Kara's hand, or pull her into a hug, but uncertain if the gesture would be welcome.

"I'm so sorry that I hurt you, and then apparently made it worse for the last week. Your opinion means more to me than - your opinion matters to me." She took another step forward, until she was close enough she could reach out and touch Kara if she wanted to. "I don't want to blame this on my upbringing, because this is my own failure, but I truly did not know until right now how to begin to fix what I ruined."

Her voice was growing thick with emotion, and Lena swallowed hard against it, searching Kara's face for any indication that what she was saying would break through Kara's anger.

"Are you sure? Because it felt like you made it pretty clear before that my opinion didn't matter?" Kara asked, uncertain. Her eyes were pink around the edges as she tried to stop any more tears from leaking out. 

"Because I get that you're stubborn. I get that you feel you have a responsibility to do certain things," Kara didn't mention them for fear of starting the entire thing over again, "but you're also smart. Incredibly smart. Lena, you're a genius. I'm just worried about you. I want you to be careful. I–" no, not that thing. Kara tried again, "I just don't want you to get hurt. Again. And it felt like you didn't care. I can't keep being the only one who cares about you. It's exhausting. I need some help." Her hands fidgeted awkwardly in front of her.

Giving in to the urge, Lena reached out and grabbed Kara's hands in her own. Kara's hands were warm and solid, and Lena tightened her fingers like her grip would prove what her words maybe couldn't.

"I've told you before that I know I'm not easy to work for… similarly, I am not used to someone being concerned about me, much less try to prevent me from doing something." Her lips twisted in wry amusement. "I reacted badly, like I would have treated a business deal, and that was wrong. I should have listened to you, I should have thought about how my words would hurt you, and I'm so sorry that I didn't."

Lena wasn't sure how to address Kara's concern that she didn't care about her own well being. If she were honest with herself, there was a kernel of truth in what Kara had said. She didn't put a lot of stock in her own worth to the world, and she knew that she would do whatever it took to get rid of the weapons she had helped to create.

"Thank you…" Kara managed after a moment. Her eyes were on their hands, something they hadn't done yet. It was new and it flooded Kara with a sense of warmth and ease. "I...I could have done a better job too. I know how badly you want to help, to fix things. Just, when Hope told me what you were doing...and what was happening," Kara swallowed roughly. She was drifting into dangerous territory. "I was afraid…" with no paddles. Drifting with no paddles over a waterfall. "I understand why you need to do it. And I might not like it, but I'd rather you tell me what's going on than trying to hide it and then something terrible happen."

"Okay," Lena acquiesced, "I'll let you know, beforehand, okay?" She loosened her grip on Kara's hands, though she didn't let go just yet. She wasn't quite ready to give up the physical connection. 

"I was surprised to hear that you had set Hope up to spy on me," she teased nervously. "I didn't get the impression that you cared for her much."

"I don't," Kara admitted, "I was... actually kind of scared she would replace me. But anyway, it wasn't about her. I care about _ you _ ."

"I could never replace you."

_ I care about  _ you.

Lena tried not to read too much into it. She tried. But the words made her heart race, and the arc reactor hummed a little louder, and she couldn't help but think of all the things those words might mean.

"You're too important to - you're too important, Kara."

Kara smiled. She also blushed but she kept her face down to hopefully hide it. Tentatively, she gave Lena's hand a squeeze and then forced herself to retreat, taking both her hands back with her.

"I'm sorry I barged in and started yelling," Kara finally managed. She looked up again when she didn't feel quite so flushed in the face. It was a mistake because now, anger dissipated, her full focus could return to what Lena was wearing.  _ Tank top _ .

The bubble of tension between them had finally popped, and Lena laughed, giving Kara a slightly lopsided smile. "Darling, you could barge in and yell at me anytime. I can't say I didn't deserve it."

_ Darling _ . That was definitely new. It felt good. Really good. The term of endearment made Kara's lips stretch out into her traditional full smile. One hand rubbed up and down her arm slowly, awkwardly, for a lack of how to respond. The entire scene before her had short circuited her brain but Kara wasn't going to complain.

Her eyes wandered away from Lena. The blonde felt like she had been staring at the sun quite too long. They landed on the gift box and she sighed, "So... what do you want me to do about this dress?"

_____

The Annual Benefit for the Firefighters Family Fund was typically an event that Lena enjoyed. It was one of the few charitable causes she had been able to sway Lex on, and once she had taken the helm as CEO, it had become a bit of a pet project. For the last two years, she had done most of the planning and preparation for the event.

Not this year. Lena knew Kara had taken over for her, and while she was sure her assistant had done a good job, it felt different this year. 

Everything was different this year. 

She gave herself one last once over in her pocket mirror as the car slowed. Her hair was twisted up elaborately at the back of her head, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. She'd opted for another deeply cut black dress, something that dipped several inches below the base of the arc reactor. In the right light, the freckles that dusted across her shoulders would be readily visible.

"Are you ready for this?" Bill asked her from the front seat, nodding his head toward the swarm of reporters at the curb.

Lena tipped her head to the side consideringly and smiled, "Not remotely. Let's get it over with."

As soon as the car door swung open, flashes from what felt like hundreds of cameras went off. Lena fixed a smile on her face and began the long walk up the carpet to the venue.

"Miss Luthor!" 

"Miss Luthor, alone tonight?"

"Miss Luthor, tell us about your dress!"

"Miss Luthor, do you have any comments about -"

The questions were endless, and Lena was forced to pause and interact with one when there was a delay in forward movement in front of her. "Miss Luthor, I'm sure I'm not the only one surprised to see you alone tonight!"

Lena wanted to roll her eyes. Of all the things to be forced to address."Who said I'm alone?"

"Aren't you?"

She smiled enigmatically. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

_____

Kara hadn't ever imagined herself in a dress like this. She rarely wore them, finding them uncomfortable at best. She had worn a few and some skirts when she first started on as Lena's assistant. She had wanted to look professional. It had quickly been a mistake. As much as Lena had her running around during the day it just wasn't practical to find herself in pencil skirts and the like. 

She switched to slacks, which she had worn at her previous job and found the change life affirming. It was much easier to sprint in pants and get all of Lena's errands for her done more efficiently. She hadn't looked back.

But when Lena Luthor buys you a dress and asks specifically that you wear it, you wear that dress. Kara had a fleeting feeling that her boss and friend had picked out this specific dress for her on purpose. The whole of her arms were bare, from her wrists all the way up to her shoulders. The top was solid black and changed at her waist to a grey and black pattern. The cut tapered, but Kara didn't expect to do much running anyway. She had worn flats though, just in case.

"No, that doesn't go there. Hurry, put it on the other table," Kara instructed the hired staff for the event. She had been here for two hours already, helping to set up and get everything arranged just perfect for Lena's biggest event of the year. It was her first time planning something so large and she wanted Lena to be impressed.

By the time Lena made it into the building, it felt like there were people everywhere. Her eyes scanned the crowd, and she attempted to keep her distance from the larger groups. She would have to interact with them all eventually, she knew, but the further off she could put it, the better.

A waiter drifted by her with a tray of champagne, and Lena plucked one gracefully. More than anything, she just needed something to do with her hands.

Across the room, she spotted Kara ordering a staff member around. A smile crept across her lips unbidden, only to be erased away when a familiar voice said her name.

Dread filled her as she turned to meet the steely gaze of her mother.

"I'm surprised to see you here, Lena."

Lena raised an eyebrow at her, taking a stalling sip of her champagne. "It is my event, Mother."

"I suppose it is," Lillian turned her gaze to sweep the crowd. "You seem to have been too busy to return any of my calls. I almost thought you'd been kidnapped again."

A chill crept up Lena's spine. She straightened her shoulders defensively, wishing for a moment that she had given in to her PR representatives wishes and not attended tonight. "I'm sorry to disappoint you." She offered her mother a false smile, "I'm still here. I simply had nothing to say to you."

Lillian's expression pinched. "Perhaps your tune will change when Lex is home."

Lena drained her champagne flute, depositing it on the closest surface to her. "I wouldn't count on it, Mother. If you'd excuse me."

The band was in full swing and the event was already packed. Kara felt like she was being pulled in about a hundred directions. It wasn't quite overwhelming. The blonde was probably running on too much adrenaline to really focus on how much there was still to do. Things to be kept running smoothly.

All the press were trying to get in but Kara had delivered a specific list of the ones who were to be allowed inside. She had to check on the caterers to make sure the hors d'oeuvres were flowing out at a steady pace. She had to make sure the drink stations weren't being depleted too quickly and if they were, get someone to restock them. 

During a brief moment of peace, Kara scanned the party. It did all appear to be going well. She hoped Lena would be pleased with her efforts. 

It took more time than Lena cared for to pick her way across the room. She was swept into several conversations on her way, most about business, several pointedly hinting at her time in Turkey, and even more blatantly staring at the blue light at her chest. By the time Lena crossed the ballroom, she'd been forced to dance with three investors, one of whom bravely slid his hand down the curve of her back only for her to pull herself away with a little more force than necessary. 

She was exhausted. She hadn't been around this many people since her funeral several weeks before, and the effort it took to keep a polite facade in the face of so many people was taxing. 

Lena was just stepping back from another conversation she didn't want to be in when she bumped into what felt like a solid wall. When she turned to see what it was, she could have crumpled in relief. Bumping into a wall may have been less embarrassing, but running into Kara was a drastic improvement.

"Kara," Lena smiled, dimples appearing on each cheek. She reached out and gripped both of Kara's arms, leaning in to give her a gala appropriate air kiss to the cheek. With her lips close to Kara's ear, she whispered, "Come dance with me."

Kara's face superheated. She was half afraid Lena could hear her heart hammering over the music. All she could do was nod even though she didn't really know how to dance. Oh god, she didn't know how to dance.

"I'm not very good, Lena…" Kara confessed. It was only one of many concerns that suddenly sprang to mind. People would see them dancing.  _ Together _ . "A-are you sure that–"

"Don't worry," Lena started to pull Kara toward the dance floor, backing herself through the crowd with the confidence of someone who knew that people would move out of her way. "I'll lead."

Kara just nodded and let herself be led along through the throngs of people. There wasn't much else she could do now anyway. It felt like her body was on autopilot.

Lena found them an open space on the dancefloor, and gave Kara an indulgent smile when she realized that the blonde was just standing there. She slid her hands down Kara's bare arms, enjoying the softness of her skin, before she pulled her assistant in closer, one hand landing at the small of her back, and the other keeping a tight grip on Kara's hand. 

Her smile only widened when Kara's free hand tentatively reached up and settled on her bare shoulder. Lena set them off in a simple waltz, something that neither of them would have to focus particularly hard on.

"Thank you," she finally said softly, the words hovering gently in the small space between them. 

"For what?" Kara asked, eyes on her feet only for a little while. It was repetitive and she quickly got the pattern of steps so she hopefully wouldn't step on Lena's toes. She half felt like she was holding onto Lena like holding a piece of glass or fine china. Lena's hands however, were firm and very steadily starting a fire that gathered somewhere that should definitely not be on fire.

Kara let her eyes drift up to meet green ones and the blonde felt like she might explode. How did Lena not hear her chest hammering? She tore her eyes away to look around them and quickly regretted it. They were being stared at. Kara could suddenly feel everyone else's eyes boring holes into her.

"For everything," Lena gave a little shrug, the shoulder under Kara's hand bouncing. "You took over the planning so that I wouldn't have to, and it's turned out wonderfully, Kara. More importantly," Lena's fingers scrunched absently at Kara's back, "You saved me from having to dance with anymore handsy old men, which I think leaves me in your debt."

Following Kara's gaze around the room, Lena tsked gently. "Look at me, darling. Not them."

Kara did as instructed, locking eyes with Lena, unable to do anything else. She almost missed her step but Lena helped her to recover. Her blush felt like a sunburn, slowly creeping up from her neck. There was no hiding it. Lena was too close and Kara had made sure the lighting for the event was flawless.

"J-just doing my job. You don't owe me anything…"

The flush creeping into Kara's cheeks was distracting, and Lena felt her hand slip from Kara's before she could register exactly what she was doing. She let her palm slide up Kara's arm again, before she rested it gently on the back of Kara's neck. It was the most intimately she had ever touched her assistant, and her fingers tingled with the knowledge. 

"And if I felt like I did," Lena tipped her head curiously, leaning a little further into Kara's space, her voice nothing more than a whisper. "What would you want?"

Kara knew what she wanted.  _ Oh _ , she knew what she wanted.  _ You. I want you.  _ She could feel Lena's fingers in her hair, teasing the little strays she hadn't been able to pin up. A little tug meant she had twirled some of it. Kara was going to melt right here, right now in a puddle at Lena's feet.

She couldn't say what she wanted to say. She had probably already been quiet too long. How long had it been? How long had they been dancing? What day was it? She needed to say something so she opened her mouth. They started to make a shape. A 'y' shape. No, she  _ couldn't _ say that.  _ Anything _ but that. What did she say?! What could she say?! 

The lights flickered, unnoticed. 

She was still staring at Lena too, pupils wide, trying to be big enough to take in all of her at once. Her eyes betrayed her as they darted down to look at Lena's lips.  _ Don't look there _ . They snapped back up. 

It had really only been about ten seconds since Lena asked but it felt like a millennium. How did Kara even know what that felt like?

"I...I want…"

The lights flickered again, a bit more staggering and then a series of lights over the band burst.

Lena jerked back abruptly, turning to locate the commotion. There were startled screams around them, and the band had screeched to a halt. Over the heads of the crowd, Lena's eyes locked with Lillian's familiar disapproving stare.

She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes, turning back toward Kara, who looked to be one second from bolting.

"I would very much like to revisit this later," Lena said bravely. If she had read the situation correctly, later could prove to be very interesting indeed. "But, for now, it seems we have some work to do."

Kara snapped to attention and nodded. Her hands fell from Lena and she set about guiding people away from the stage. She got a cleaning crew to the mess and in the meantime had started up a gala appropriate playlist that came through the speakers to keep the mood. People went back to drinking and eating and dancing and talking as the momentary distraction was dealt with. 

After the worst of the commotion, a new hand found its way to Lena's shoulder and gave a friendly squeeze. "You sure can throw a party, Lena. I'd work on the light show for next year though," the tone was teasing and could belong to only one person.

"Sam." Lena tried not to sound as disappointed as she felt. For a brief moment, she had thought Kara had found her again, and she was practically buzzing with the idea of revisiting later  _ right now _ . "I'll be sure to put in lasers, instead." 

She gave Sam a quick once over. The agent was wearing what had to be a staple for her, another suit that hugged her frame but covered the weapon Lena could just see the outline of. Here for business, then. As usual.

"What can I do for you, Sam? I thought I had made my answer clear at our last meeting."

" _ Oh _ you did, don't worry," Sam was still smiling, despite Lena's chillier greeting, "I'm not here for that. I'm here as a friend. My boss on the other hand is definitely here to get you to change your mind. Turns out there was a UFO over New York a few nights ago. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Was there?" Lena raised her brows in false surprise. "I hadn't heard."

Despite herself, she relaxed around Sam. "Then, as a friend, what should I expect from your boss?"

"He's…" Sam stopped, trying to find the right words, " _ determined _ , I think. He's a good man, but he hasn't tried to contend with a Luthor before." The agent wink and snagged a glass of champagne as a waiter passed. She took a sip and smiled, "Man...not much time for this in Turkey. So, I saw you dancing with that cute assistant of yours," Sam started back in her teasing tone and nudged Lena lightly, "You're cute together. Have you told her yet?"

Lena's cheeks flushed, and she gave her head a little shake. "No… I thought that maybe something would happen, but then the lights went."

"Curious," Sam noted but she was smiling, "You'll get your chance." She snagged a snack from a tray next and popped it into her mouth. "You really can plan a party. These are delicious," Sam made a motion to leave but she stopped and leaned in a little closer to Lena than was probably necessary, "the UFO looked like a man by the way. A metal one, if you were curious. If I were them, I'd be a little more careful next time," Sam pulled back and winked and then worked her way back into the crowd.

Heart dropping, Lena tracked Sam until the agent stopped to talk to a stern looking man in a suit. He looked up and met Lena's gaze firmly, which only caused more dread to fill her system.

That had to be Sam's boss. 

Sam's warning swirling in her mind, Lena turned away from the unwavering gaze in front of her and began to move. She wasn't altogether sure where she was going, only that she knew she had to get away from where she was.

Kara had finished overseeing the last of the cleanup. The bulbs had been replaced and the music transitioned back to the band. It made her sigh in relief as people came back to the dance floor. What an accident that had been.

Kara knew better. Strange things seemed to be happening around her more and more. It was... unnerving. She needed a drink. Just one glass of champagne would be fine. Alcohol had never really affected her much anyway. The blonde flagged down a waiter and got herself a glass. She sipped at it idly and watched the crowd, thinking about what Lena wanted to revisit. It made her heart flutter. Best not think about it too hard or there might be another accident. Kara turned, drink in hand, meaning to go and get some of that food she had been staring at all night and collided like a brick wall with something that had considerably more give. 

The champagne went all down the front of her dress and Kara's face flushed from embarrassment before she could even look up to see who she had run into. "Oh  _ geeze _ , I'm such a goof, I'm sorry," the blonde said as she shook champagne off her hand.

"Luckily I knew that when I hired you." Lena didn't bother trying to hide the relief in her voice. Kara's presence immediately calmed her nerves. She brushed off a few drops of champagne from Kara's arm under the guise of being helpful.

"Really, though, we ought to be more careful. People might talk if we keep bumping into each other like this."

"People might already be talking," Kara mumbled and looked around but only briefly. She turned back to Lena, "the whole mess has been sorted out. Everyone has already forgotten about it, lucky you. I managed to keep the photographers off of it. Hopefully there will only be good articles about the fundraiser tomorrow," Kara sighed, "Everything seems to be winding down well. The leftover food is getting donated to shelters in the city, the champagne will be up for grabs. I'll circulate a memo on Monday. All in all, it's gone well, don't you think? Is there anything I haven't done that you want for next year?"

A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. In her mind, they hadn't given anyone a single thing to talk about yet. Lena itched to change that.

But Kara clearly didn't want to talk about it, and Lena knew that there was still a strong chance that she'd be tracked down by a federal agent tonight. Always a time and a place, she reminded herself.

"No, Kara, I think you did wonderfully. Maybe I'll have you organize next years as well." 

Lena couldn't help but let her gaze travel down Kara for a moment, and despite herself, she couldn't help one more comment to get under her assistant's skin. "Your dress is ruined," she said gently, dragging her eyes back up slowly. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and tried very hard not to think about peeling that dress off of Kara. 

She ought to stop. She knew that. Kara was her employee, and Lena knew she was flirting with all kinds of sexual harassment clauses that Pam with HR had made her sign months ago. 

"Yeah, yeah, that was my fault. I'll get it dry cleaned this weekend, I think that will take care of it. I don't even want to know how much it cost you, and I was so clumsy," Kara rattled on and then waved a hand, "but I've got a bag in the back with extra clothes for the after event clean up. I suppose I could change now but…" Kara worried her bottom lip as she thought about it, "Then I'd be sorely under dressed for the occasion."

"Hmm?" Lena pulled her eyes forcibly away from Kara's lips, and gave herself a stern internal talking to. "What occasion?"

"This occasion, Lena," Kara said, eyeing her boss curiously, "Did you have too much champagne? I helped put all of this together. It's only fair if I help take it all down. I'm sure you've stayed long enough. It's almost over anyway. I can call Bill to bring the car for you?"

She had to stop, Lena reminded herself. She must have misread the situation earlier, and if she had, there was a strong chance she was making Kara uncomfortable. They'd only just recently recovered from their fight, and Lena was not about to risk damaging their friendship again.

It would have to be enough. She had lived without it this long, she reminded herself. 

"That would be lovely, thank you." Lena offered Kara what she hoped was a sincere smile. "You ought to head home yourself, though. You've been here almost all day, and in my experience, the staff will just want you out of the way. They're faster at wrapping these up than you or I could ever hope to be. Bill can drop you off on the way."

Kara  _ was _ tired. Lena had a point. She had been here for hours helping to set up. Come to think of it, she hadn't done much actual setting up other than supervision. Maybe she would just be in the way. These people had all done other events in the past. They could take things down without her.

"Yeah, yes, thank you. I took the bus so I would have to take it back later. Your place is closer though. He can just drop you off as usual and I can walk home from there," Kara smiled, big and full this time, "I'll go call him and grab my bag."

Soon Kara had a duffle bag strap over her shoulder and found Lena trying to hide out for her last few minutes and avoid unwanted attention. "Hey, I called him around back so you won't have to talk to any press still outside," Kara said and reached for Lena's hand to guide her, "I'll show you."

Lena bit down on her lip hard, letting Kara tangle their fingers together and lead her out of the ballroom and down a secluded hallway. It was the easiest way to have Lena follow her, she reminded. Kara was doing something that made sense, not holding her hand because she wanted to. 

Normal hand holding probably didn't usually include the intertwining of fingers, but Kara let it happen anyway. It felt nice and if it gave Lena some comfort then what could it hurt? The fact it was mostly shamelessly for herself didn't affect Kara either, or she tried not to let it.

She opened a back door and sure enough there was Bill and the car and soon they were off, riding away from a busy evening back to Lena's building. Kara had let go of her hand so they could both get in the car but it rested, still open in the middle seat. It felt like some kind of awkward invitation and Kara didn't know why she left it there instead of putting it in her lap.

"Uhm…" the blonde cleared her throat and spoke up again with a little more assurance, "you asked earlier if...if there was something I wanted? Do you still think you owe me?"

Hope surged in her chest, and Lena turned in her seat to face Kara more fully. Eyes wide, Lena felt a slow smile spread across her face. "Of course," she said, voice a little throatier than normal. "After all, you did save me tonight." Her knee bumped playfully against Kara's.

"Okay," Kara smiled but she was glad that Lena couldn't see the blush building for the dim light in the car, "Good. Uhm... Sunday is my birthday," Kara started, "Okay well not exactly my birthday. It's the day the Danvers adopted me. I don't know my actual birthday. I mean there has to be a day but I don't know it or remember it–" and now she was rambling and squeezing her hands together, "–but we celebrate it like it's my birthday. And Alex and I usually go home for it but she can't because she has to work the weekend shift so...so I was wondering if you would like to come...and have dinner or something...with me?  _ And _ Alex if she's off in time. For my birthday? Because you're my friend."

"Your friend. Of course." Lena stamped hard on that traitorous burst of hope. "I'd love to, Kara." 

Friends. Because that's what they were. Lena's fingers twisted around themselves in her lap, and she stilled them, smoothing her hands down her thighs instead. Anything to hide the sudden tension she felt.

"Yeah?!" Kara's smile was as big as ever. She had been so nervous to ask. She hadn't thought to bring it up, especially not after their fight, but they had made up and Lena was opening up to her more and Kara wanted to do the same. With any luck (a  _ lot _ of luck) it might lead to what she really wanted. What she had really wanted to ask for. 

"Wow, I'm so glad. I was worried you would say no. I know you said you weren't really good at friends so... I'm sorry. I've just been nervous to ask you this whole time. I didn't want to make you feel awkward. I can do something with Alex during lunch, if you didn't want to meet her? I mean you probably should eventually, she knows all about you. She thought you crashing your own funeral took balls, her words not mine. She laughed when I told her about it," Kara gushed, full of eagerness and excitement already. She would have to plan something really good so that Lena enjoyed herself.

Lena couldn't help her genuine smile in the face of Kara's enthusiasm. "Tell her thank you, but that my balls are purely metaphorical." Good natured sarcasm dripped from the words, green eyes teasing.

Kara laughed and nodded, "I figured. Or I hoped anyway." As a reflex, the hand she had been keeping between them grabbed Lena's closest to hers and held it again, too happy to think much about it. They'd held hands before.

"Oh hey, we are here. Do you mind if I come up and change? I don't want to walk all the way back in this dress."

Lena gave Kara's fingers a quick squeeze before letting go. "I wouldn't make you do that." The car slowed to a stop, Bill hopping out of the front seat to let them out.

"Have a good night, Miss Luthor, Miss Danvers." 

"Good night, Bill. Enjoy your weekend." Lena gave Bill a warm smile as they exited the car, before turning back to Kara and her looming apartment building.

She shivered a little on the walk to the door. Despite being almost summer, the evenings were still cold, and Lena's dress didn't cover enough skin to be outside for long. 

Kara noticed the slight posture change in Lena, so she walked closely in stride with her, hoping to at least block the breeze. Even as they entered she stayed close. Even when they were the only ones in the elevator, Kara stayed right next to her.

As the awkward elevator music settled over them Kara occupied herself by thinking about the evening. It had been one of her favorites to date and  _ dancing _ …

Kara blushed again. She was doing that a lot tonight. "So…" Kara's voice cut through the silence like a blunt spoon, "I uh...I really liked dancing with you…" That was probably weird to say, but friends danced with each other. Maybe not something fancy like the waltz but Kara knew Alex went out with her friends and danced. But Kara also knew she meant it more than that. She had panicked and then the  _ lights _ . 

Kara was standing so close to her that if she swayed, their arms would brush. Lena kept her hands clasped in front of her, actively trying not to think about how she could feel the heat coming off the blonde in waves. The air felt charged in the elevator as they steadily rose, and the chill that had caused her to shiver before was replaced with nerves.

They were headed up to her penthouse, and all Lena could think about was how soft Kara's skin was.

"It was easily the best part of my night," Lena agreed softly, giving in to the urge to bump gently against Kara's side.

A bigger smile spread over Kara at Lena's admission. It was possibly the best she had felt all night. As a tease, the blonde leaned and lightly bumped her back before the elevator  _ dinged _ signaling they had finally reached Lena's floor. "I'm glad. Mine too," Kara said softly and stepped off and waited for Lena.

"I just need to change. I won't take too long. I'm sure you're tired."

"Take as long as you need, Kara. It's no imposition." Lena let them into the penthouse, "I'm going to get out of this dress. As fabulous as it is," she gave Kara a cheeky grin, "It is not at all comfortable. Would you - will you wait to leave?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Kara nodded sincerely and let herself get one more look at Lena in the dress. It had been nice,  _ very _ nice. Kara took her duffle into Lena's spare bathroom and changed pretty quickly. She sat on the toilet to pull on her sneakers and then started pulling some of the pins out of her hair as she stepped out of the bathroom.

Kara pulled her hair into a ponytail, holding the pins in her mouth while she did, and looked around for Lena.  _ She must not be done, _ Kara assumed and put the pins in her bag then zipped it up. "Lena?! I'm done!" Kara shoved her hands into her hoodie pocket and let herself relax, finally in some comfortable clothes.

Lena padded out of her bedroom with a sheepish smile. She had kicked off her heels as soon as she'd stepped into the room, and was now barefoot. Her hair was down and pulled over one shoulder, soft waves in it from her twisted hairstyle. When she finally caught Kara's eye, her face flushed.

"I um," she faltered, and bit her lip, glancing away from Kara's face. "I can't reach the zipper…"

Kara chuckled and set her bag down behind Lena's couch and then walked over, "Here, turn around. I've got it," Kara said lightly, breath catching a little when she first saw Lena step out. Once Lena's back was to her Kara took a second to take a breath and compose herself. 

Gentle hands found Lena's zipper and began to unzip it. It caught a bit so Kara tried again, fingers accidentally brushing Lena's bare back. Kara could already feel her pulse race and she released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding when she got the zipper halfway down. "You should be able to reach it now," she said quietly but her hands lingered longer than necessary. In some parallel universe Kara was already planting soft lips on Lena's back, but it wasn't this one.

Lena shivered visibly when Kara's breath ghosted over her shoulder, and she tried to get her breathing under control. She brought her hands up to hold the dress up over her chest, feeling it slip as she tried to look over her shoulder at Kara.

"Thank you," she murmured. She was flushed, heat crawling up to her cheeks, eyes dark. This did not feel like friendship, she thought deliriously.

"No problem," Kara's voice was barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat and then pulled away, trying to shake herself from whatever this spell was. She was treading dangerously close to the edge.

"Uhm, I told Alex I would be home by eleven so...I should probably head home," Kara said, a little more clearly than before despite being even more keyed up. "You'll be okay, from here?"

Swallowing hard, Lena nodded, turning to face Kara again. Her hands were tight against the front of the dress, her fingers gripping the seam so tightly she was sure the wrinkles would never come out. "Don't worry, Kara, I can handle myself."

"Okay," Kara smiled and went to retrieve her bag and slung it over her shoulder, "I'll text you about Sunday. I had fun tonight." Kara was at the door, still smiling, although it was a little off. She wanted to stay but the blonde didn't think she could handle it if she did. She had her hand on the knob.

It took all of Lena's willpower to stay rooted to the spot when all she wanted to do was launch herself across the room.

"So did I. Goodnight, darling."

She managed to keep her disappointed sigh in until after Kara had shut the door behind herself.

Kara stood outside in the short hallway and sighed. She had been here many times. The hallway was her friend. It led her back downstairs to the lobby. The further away she got the better she would feel. Well no, that was a lie. The further away she got the worse she would feel because she didn't want to be leaving. 

_ Goodnight, darling. _

Kara smiled to herself, still leaning against the door. Something about when Lena used that word made the blonde want to melt.  _ Darling _ . She was thinking too hard again and the lights flickered above her. Kara sighed and took a step forward, and then another one and another one and another one till she had walked halfway down the hall and back and found herself in front of Lena's door again.

The lights hummed a little louder. Kara was knocking. Once. Then again. And again and then repeatedly, "Lena?!"

Lena was still pulling her sweater onto her arm as she answered the door. The dress lay abandoned in the middle of her living room where she had stepped out of it. "Kara? What are you doing here?"

Kara dropped her bag. This was a terrible idea.

"Please don't fire me," Kara said very quickly, in such a rush she barely had time to comprehend the words herself. She took a step forward right into Lena's space and planted her shaky hands as gently as she could on either side of Lena's face. Then she kissed her and Kara's world lit up like lightning. 

The soft noise of surprise that escaped Lena was muffled by Kara's lips. It took only a second for her shock to wear off, and then Lena was stepping into Kara, pressing the length of her body into the taller woman. Her hands came up and fisted in the front of Kara's shirt, grip tight.

Kara took the extra tight grip on her clothes as a good sign and kissed Lena again. A whole light show was going off in her brain with each one and Kara didn't stop until she needed to breathe. Even then she only pulled back and inch or so and started to ramble on her excitement, "That's what I wanted. What I want. I mean I also want you to come to my birthday but when you asked when we were dancing this was all I could think about and –"

"Kara, darling -" Her heart was racing. She could hear the agitated hum from the arc reactor. Her hands had abandoned Kara's shirt once she was sure the blonde wouldn't bolt. She slid one up into Kara's hair, blunt nails scratching against her scalp, and the other trailed fingertips along Kara's jaw. 

She pressed up onto her toes, pulling Kara's head down to her as she went. "Shut up and kiss me," she ordered, tipping her head just enough to catch Kara's lips again.

Oh, Kara liked that. She listened and kissed Lena eagerly, accidentally knocking their teeth together. "Ow," she kissed her again, "Sorry." Lena's grip on her hair reigned her in and each soft yet insistent tug felt like another instruction Kara was compelled to obey. One of her hands left Lena's cheek and curious fingers settled at the back of Lena's neck. Her other hand drifted down and landed on Lena's hip. Kara gripped the edge of the long sweater and pulled, wanting Lena closer if at all possible.

They were still half in the penthouse and half out, on the precipice, but Kara knew where she wanted to be. She pulled away again, lips swollen, pupils blown, "Do you want me to leave or can I come in?"

"I would hate to keep you out past your curfew," Lena teased even as she backed them up into the living room. She reached out behind Kara and caught the edge of the front door with just her fingertips, pushing the door closed.

It clicked shut, and Lena felt it shoot through her with finality. Kara had kissed her. Kara had kissed her and now they were backing up quickly until Lena's knees bumped against her large couch. 

"Alex will get over it," Kara said with a breathy puff of air. She was in Lena's penthouse. She had kissed her. They were kissing. Lena was enjoying it. Kara's mind was being blown. She leaned in a little more and connected their mouths again with a little more force while one hand came up and splayed out on Lena's chest over her sweater. The same firm hand pushed a little, sending Lena down onto the couch. Kara followed her, but found she was bolder, and instead of kissing her mouth, Kara found her tilting up Lena's chin. She openly kissed Lena's neck and let her tongue dart out to taste her skin.

A low moan ripped from Lena's throat as she tipped her head willingly back. She loosened her grip on Kara's hair, her hand slipping down to the back of Kara's neck. Lena squeezed her eyes shut, all of her focus on the hot trail of Kara's mouth.

Distantly, she knew her neck would be covered in red when Kara pulled away, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She would wear high collars for the rest of her life if it meant Kara didn't stop what she was doing. 

The only logical path was down and Kara could already hear the hum of the arc reactor steady in her ears beneath Lena's sweater. She pulled the neck of it to the side and kissed Lena's shoulder, or the part she could reach. She had leaned too far over and almost fell. One hand moved out and braced herself on the couch. Kara's chest was heaving for air but she just wanted  _ more _ . Some better sense kept her from it and she pulled her face away so she could look at Lena.

" _ Oh wow _ …" Kara's eyes were wide and taking her in. Little splotches of discoloration lined Lena's neck. Her lips were kiss swollen and her cheeks flushed. Kara couldn't help it, "You're incredible."

Lena's cheeks darkened impossibly further, her breath coming in short gasps. Eyes fluttering open, she gave Kara a brilliant smile, reaching up to cup Kara's cheek. "Don't flatter me right now, I can't think."

Gently, she traced the swell of Kara's cheekbone, then slid her fingers into blonde hair, pulling Kara down again. She brushed their lips together almost chastely, buying herself a moment to calm her racing pulse. "I need you to know that this means something, to me. I know my reputation, and that's not… thats not  _ this _ ."

Kara was in her own sort of daze after the kiss but she made herself listen. She let understanding wash over her, although it took a little longer than usual. Lena had been on the cover of several magazines, most commonly CatCo Magazine, for being obviously rich and influential. The tabloids loved her too, but mostly because she was always with someone different. Someone new every event she appeared at. Someone different every week sometimes. 

Kara had honestly put it out of her mind, until now. She let the heat and touch of Lena's hand in her hair soothe her, keep her calm. The arc reactor hummed steady between them and Kara took a breath. She took the words at face value and smiled, "Me too. I mean it means a lot to me too. More than I should probably tell you right now," Red brightened on Kara's cheeks and she leaned into Lena's touch. If Lena changed her mind...Kara bit her bottom lip. If Lena changed her mind then the blonde told herself that would be okay too (even if it wasn't). She would enjoy what Lena was willing to give her.

"Then don't," Lena said simply, pushing up to catch Kara's lips with hers. She tugged gently on Kara's lower lip with her teeth, soothing the bite with her tongue moments later. 

Kara let out a surprised little moan. If Lena didn't want to talk then they just wouldn't talk. Kara kissed her harder and then finally just moved onto the couch with her. The blonde straddled Lena as lightly as she could manage and leaned over her, kissing her again. Kara sucked on Lena's lower lip and then ran her tongue over it copying what Lena had done. One hand braced her up on the couch but the other hand was playing with the hem of Lena's MIT sweater.

The touch of Kara's tongue shot a bolt of arousal through her, a desperate noise catching at the back of her throat. Lena’s fingers tightened on the back of Kara’s neck as she deepened their kiss. One bare foot hooked itself behind Kara’s knee and tugged, bringing the blonde’s weight down on top of her.

Kara fell on Lena, letting out a brief  _ oof _ before she recovered. Her tongue swiped Lena's lip again, and then her teeth. When Kara kissed her again it was a little more hesitant, her tongue moving deeper into Lena's mouth tentatively searching for hers. When she found it, Kara's breath hitched and the hand on Lena's waist took a firm grip of her hip. A strong squeeze, and then Kara's hand splayed out and tickling fingertips smoothed under the sweater and found skin. The blonde itched to touch and explore more but she wasn't sure where the line was or if there even was a line anymore.

Kara's fingers were firm on her hip, and Lena felt like she would short circuit if she thought for too long about how good Kara's fingers would feel anywhere else. And then Kara was sliding her palm up, and Lena immediately regretted that she hadn't abandoned her sweater when she had the chance. She pulled as far back as the couch would allow her, trailing wet, biting kisses down Kara's jaw. 

With a nip to the lobe of Kara's ear, Lena smiled, heat curling low in her body. "Take me to bed, darling."

Oh, that's where the line was. _ Alright then _ . Goosebumps cropped up along Kara's neck and arms when she felt Lena's breath on her ear. The words themselves help spread the goosebumps to her back and Kara just pulled away and nodded very quickly. 

The blonde's body was full of heat and jittery energy. She pulled away on the couch and reached for Lena's hands. She held them firmly but not tightly, and tugged Lena till she was sitting up. Kara grabbed her legs and pulled them roughly to hook around her waist.

"Hold on to my neck," came a throaty order before Kara kissed her and scooped her hands underneath Lena's thighs. And then she was standing up. Kara's legs didn't even shake. Her arms held firm and the blonde walked them straight to Lena's bedroom with some strange sense of confidence.

It had always been in the back of her mind that Kara was fit. She had known it like she knew the Earth rotated the sun, but to experience it in such a real way…

If Lena hadn't been ready before, she certainly was now.

She locked her ankles at Kara's back, squeezing her thighs tightly on either side of the blonde's body. Her hands gripped at the back of Kara's neck, and distantly, she knew it was probably a bad idea to distract Kara while she held Lena aloft.

The thought didn't stop her. While they made their way to the bedroom, Lena deposited hot, open mouthed kisses on Kara's neck, favoring the warm spot just behind her ear. Teeth grazed just as Kara pushed them into the bedroom, and Lena gave a soft moan at the realization that this was it. 

Kara deposited Lena right onto the bed but she didn't back away. Lena's lips all over her neck left Kara's face flushed. Her chest heaved with excited breathing, but the blonde made no move to do anything else. Her hands stayed holding Lena's thighs and Lena's legs stayed locked around her.

They were here, about to do something Kara had daydreamed about a shameful amount of times. Yet, she couldn't move.

"Are you sure?"

Just once more. She needed to hear it just one more time. Kara was eyeing her seriously, but her bated breath and hands gave away how antsy she was.

Carefully, fingers light, Lena traced the strong curve of Kara's jaw, trailed them over Kara's lips, down her chin, back down her neck before dropping to the hem of her own sweater. Deliberately, she pulled it up over her head, dropping it over the side of the bed. It left her bare from the waist up, and Lena met Kara's gaze with a sultry smile.

"Kara, I want you to fuck me."

Kara's brain didn't have any room left to overthink it. It was full up of the view of Lena's bare chest and milky, lightly freckled skin. Kara pulled her hands away and yanked off her jacket hoodie and lost it to the floor, leaving her in an old soft t-shirt. Kara shot forward and captured Lena's lips. It sent Lena's back onto the sheets and left Kara leaning over her. She bit Lena's bottom lip and sucked before dragging her tongue and hot open mouthed kisses down her neck. 

Soft fingers splayed over the skin of Lena's stomach, feeling her, before Kara scratched lightly down, leaving soft little red lines in their wake. Her mouth made it to Lena's collar bone and she kissed there too. She made a trail down between her breasts and didn't stop till she kissed right below her belly button.

Kara took a step back and hooked her fingers at the hem of Lena's sweatpants and then started to pull as she backed up till she had tugged them all the way off and they were abandoned on the floor with the rest of her clothes. The blonde just stopped to look, eyes wide and neck and face red with heat. "Gosh, you're  _ gorgeous _ ..."

Lena let out a soft whine at the praise, shifting and pressing her thighs together. She felt like she was on fire, every nerve ending alight where Kara had touched her. Sitting up, she pulled at Kara's shirt, bringing it up and over her head, knocking her glasses askew. 

It hit the floor with a soft thump, and Lena wasted no time getting her hands on Kara's smooth skin, tugging the blonde to her again. "Kara," she couldn't get enough of the heat of Kara's skin against hers, her hips pressing up, seeking friction. "You feel amazing."

Kara's grin got bigger and she fixed her glasses, fumbling with them before she just took them off and stretched to put them over on Lena's night stand. The blonde bent over and kissed Lena and then kissed her soft stomach. She pulled away again right after and started to scramble out of her shoes. She sat down on the bed to get out of her shoes and nearly fell while tugging off the last sneaker.

Kara scrambled up and then kicked herself out of her pants. She felt a little self-conscious about now basically being naked in front of Lena but a swell consolation prize was having Lena naked in front of her too. She finally crawled up on the bed, slowly, both because she was nervous and it was honestly a little fun making Lena wait, and positioned herself so she was over Lena. 

She was straddling one of Lena's legs which left her knee between them. When Kara leaned down and nipped at Lena's neck she brought that same knee forward and put pressure against Lena's underwear.

Lena's hands shot to Kara's shoulders, nails digging in as she arched against the pressure at her core. Thoughtlessly, she hooked a leg around Kara, trying in vain to bring the other woman in closer. But Kara didn't budge, moving at her own pace, much to Lena's frustration.

She could feel the curve of Kara's lips against her skin, and in an effort to wipe what she was sure was a smug smile off her assistant's face, she drug her nails down Kara's back, red lines bright against tanned skin, though they faded quickly. When she met the resistance of Kara's bra, she pulled at it, popping the clasp. Lena pushed it aside impatiently, dragging a hand to Kara's front.

Kara mumbled something about Lena being impatient against the skin of her neck, but she relented regardless. She sat up just long enough to pull her bra off and give it a good toss before she was back down on her again. This time the blonde pressed their bodies together and kissed Lena soundly both as a distraction and as a moment to help Kara think.

Sure, she had done this before and at the time probably found it at least somewhat enjoyable but that had been a while ago now. And she hadn't done it  _ like this. _ With another woman. Not all the bases. Kara thought it probably wouldn't be much different from what she did alone just...with Lena instead. Still, her nerves were starting to come out and she didn't want Lena to know. Or more importantly to be disappointed. 

Kara started to move her knee against Lena's core, since the other woman was canting her hips like that's what she wanted anyway. It would buy some time for Kara to build up more confidence since it seemed to have ebbed since carrying her in the bedroom.

Lena was sure that Kara was going to kill her. She'd been on a steady broil for the entire evening, and her arousal had shot sky high as soon as Kara's hands had touched her skin. Now, with Kara's leg solid against her and their kisses turning hot and sloppy, Lena wasn't sure if she would last long enough for Kara to touch her properly. 

One hand was pinned between their chests, and the other was tangled in the blankets by her head. The low, needy sounds she was making were muffled into the kiss, and as she ground down against what felt like solid muscle, they increased in pitch.

She was glad she owned the building and occupied the entire top floor, or she was sure she'd be hearing from angry neighbors later.

Judging by the glorious cacophony of noises Kara was hearing, Lena couldn't tell she was nervous at all. That was very good. It made her feel bolder, so she braced herself up so she was less laying on top of Lena and more leaning over her again. Kara trailed her kisses down from Lena's mouth, letting the unfiltered noises into the air between them. Instead of continuing down like last time, the blonde finally stopped. 

She kissed above the arc reactor, listening to it's currently very loud hum, and then kissed below it. She kissed the glass covering even though Lena couldn't feel it and she blushed a little, feeling foolish. It made her lips tingle and Kara let out a short chuckle before finally just going for it. 

She latched her mouth onto one of Lena's nipples. She swirled her tongue around it and bit it gently before she let it go. Kara moved her head just enough to do the same to the other one. The blonde swallowed hard and then slipped her hand down the front of Lena's underwear, which was surprisingly soaked and earned a quiet gasp from Kara. 

"Fuck, Kara," Lena groaned, drawing out the last syllable as she felt the first brush of Kara's fingers. She forced her hips to still, to let Kara explore at her own pace. 

Lifting her head, Lena took in blonde hair draped over her chest, Kara's broad shoulders peeking out from under loose curls. The sight made her soften, until a bold swipe of Kara's tongue against her nipple made her gasp again, her body tensing in effort to stay still.

Kara's fingers were slick and rubbed easily around Lena's clit, having enough knowledge at least about herself to know that was a golden ticket spot. She did a few soft but firm circles before dipping lower. One finger found her entrance and pushed inside. Kara was holding her breath and gave a few tentative pumps before she added another finger, and then used her knee to help and provide a little more force. She was so distracted by this that her mouth had stopped it's work and she was just fogging up the front of the arc reactor with her breath.

Both hands made their way to Kara's shoulders again, using them as an anchor. Lena shuddered, already close, and she pushed back hard against Kara's fingers, meeting each thrust. She could feel each one scooch her slightly further up the bed but found she didn't care, tightening the leg she had wrapped around Kara to keep them together.

"Kara… can you…" she shifted her hips, seeking a different angle, "one more?"

To her credit, Kara did as asked, and quickly. She added a third finger on her next pump inside and found the squeeze around her fingers enjoyably tight. It made that smug grin come back and Kara kissed up Lena's neck and then nibbled her earlobe. She increased her pace and used her thumb to rub Lena's clit again.

She let out a hot breath on Lena's ear, having no time to think before she spoke, "You feel so good, Lena. You're amazing."

Lena's back arched, eyes squeezed tight as Kara's words washed over her. The noises she had been so unabashedly making before abruptly stopped as she tightened around Kara's fingers, mouth open in a silent cry. 

It took several long minutes for her body to relax enough for Kara to slip her fingers out, and another minute more for Lena to finally open bleary green eyes. She could feel the press of Kara still against her, but with the urgency gone, she found herself moving lazily, brushing blonde strands of hair away from blue eyes.

"Hey…" Kara smiled, lopsided, but it was genuine, "Welcome back," she teased. She moved her face down and kissed above the reactor again and then shifted to lay down next to Lena, propping her head up with her hand and elbow against the bed. She had a light blush on her cheeks, one that had probably been there the entire time. Her eyes dragged up and down Lena but always moved back to her face. It felt like she was staring at the sun. "So...full transparency... I've never done that before…"

Lena rolled onto her side to face Kara, dropping one hand casually on Kara's bare side. She didn't bother trying to hide the surprise on her face. "How are you feeling about that?"

She supposed she could have checked in with Kara more, tried a little more actively to assess her comfort level. But with the contentment of the last few minutes still humming through her limbs, Lena decided she would hold off on self flagellation until she knew there was cause.

Kara was quiet for a moment while she chewed on her lip. It was her thinking face. Her really deep thinking face and Lena would have seen a few times before in the office. "I feel...good," Kara concluded and smiled softly, content. "I'm sorry. Maybe I should have said something, but I didn't want to disappoint you. I've just... I've wanted to do that for such a long time and I was afraid if you knew then we would stop. And I definitely did not want to stop. I'm sorry, I'm rambling again," Kara groaned softly and let herself fall into her back, bringing one of her arms over her eyes.

Shifting herself until she could settle halfway onto Kara's chest, Lena traced senseless patterns into Kara's skin. "For a long time, hmm?" 

Kara stiffened some and her whole body blushed. The arm over her eyes pressed down a little harder. "Uh...y-yeah. Yeah, I mean like...yes. At least since the Christmas party last year... probably before that. I liked you before that…"

Lena grinned, pulling herself up to lay on top of Kara fully. After a moment's hesitation, she reached down and wiggled out of her underwear. It felt silly to keep wearing it when Kara had touched everything already.

"Kara," Lena tugged gently at the arm covering her eyes, "Darling, look at me."

Kara let Lena move her arm but blue eyes stayed locked over on Lena's closet door. She could feel the other woman's gaze on her like fire. She broke and Kara's eyes slowly moved until she was looking at Lena. She sighed, "I liked you before the Christmas party."  _ I knew I loved you after the Christmas party. _

"I'm a little late to the game, I suppose." Lena pressed a lingering kiss to Kara's lips, then tucked herself down until her head rested in the crook of Kara's neck. The arc reactor cast blue light across Kara's chest, and Lena smoothed her hand across soft skin while she thought. 

"You've always been more to me than an assistant," she started, then immediately amended the statement. "Mm, no. I take that back. After you had to ask me for a fifth stapler. I would have fired anyone else. It wasn't until my funeral that I realized maybe I was feeling something a little more."

Lena's lips twisted in wry amusement as she thought of the debacle of a service her mother had orchestrated.  _ Peonies _ , really. "Those photos in the slide show." Lena lifted her head to look Kara in the eye again, face serious. "You see me, Kara Danvers. I suspect you always have."

Kara was still blushing, heavier if possible. She felt she probably looked like a tomato. "It's hard not to," Kara said quietly.

A warm smile found its way across Lena's face, and she kissed Kara soundly, only pulling back to ask, "Should you check in with your sister? Because if I have my way, you aren't leaving this bed tonight."

"She'll be okay," Kara grinned and propped herself up and kissed Lena again, "She's on lates anyway. She won't even notice. Speaking of actually...Uhm," Kara pulled her lower lip between her teeth, "Sunday...for dinner, uhm, what do I call you? Like, I mean...do I say you're my boss? My friend?" The blonde sighed, "My  _ girl _ friend?" She offered up hopefully.

"I think I like the sound of that." 

Kara beamed and surged forward and kissed Lena all over her face. She kissed her nose, her forehead, each of her cheeks, and then finished it off with her lips. "That's great. That's  _ so _ great! Lena Luthor is my girlfriend…" she said it teasingly first, still grinning like an idiot and then she repeated herself, softer, more reverent, like she was amazed.

Lena laughed under Kara's kiss assault, batting the blonde away until Kara pulled back, looking at her like she was something special. It made emotion clog up her throat, and Lena flushed with embarrassment that such a small thing could affect her so deeply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the love!
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> happypugstuff


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, a little early for you!
> 
> Hold on to your pants, because it's about to get interesting!

When Lena woke it was to sun streaming in through the windows she hadn't closed all the way the night before. There was something heavy draped across her middle, and it tightened on her as she shifted a little. 

The night came back to her in flashes, bringing with it a broad smile. 

Lena sat up carefully, disentangling herself from Kara's arms. She took a moment to admire the woman in her bed, only half covered by the blankets that they had kicked and twisted out from under the corners of the mattress. Kara's hair was a tangled golden mess in the warm morning light, covering the majority of her face that wasn't pressed into the pillow. Lena caught sight of several red lipstick stains that trailed along Kara's hip before they disappeared under the sheets.

She grinned wolfishly, remembering the delicious noises Kara had made as her mouth worked steadily downward.

The clock on her nightstand helpfully told her it was just past seven, and if the soft snores coming from the beds now sole occupant were anything to go by, it would be some time yet before Kara would wake.

Padding around the room quietly, Lena gathered the clothes she would need and crept into the attached bathroom. After a quick shower, she made her way into the kitchen, clad in soft lounge pants and a warm scoop necked sweater. Some distance from the bedroom, Lena felt a little more comfortable with making some noise.

"Hope, what's the latest news?"

"Good morning, Miss Luthor." Hope responded, the hourglass in the corner of the kitchen lighting up. "Here are the top ten headlines from…"

Lena half listened as she busied herself with breakfast. Contrary to Kara's apparent belief, Lena was perfectly capable of cooking, and had even grown to enjoy it. She started with a light batter, deciding she would treat Kara to crépes as she listened to Hope talk about the latest political scandal.

She set coffee to brewing, gathering ingredients for filling. She paused at the open refrigerator, her damp hair cooling uncomfortably against her skin as she debated savory versus sweet. In the end, she opted for both, chopping up plump strawberries while her mind wandered. 

Once the chopped strawberries had been set in a bowl and dusted with sugar, Lena set herself to the eggs. She diced mushrooms and onion, chopped spinach, and scrambled it all together in a frying pan with cheese to bind it. In the background, Hope changed subjects, listing off the latest atrocities in the middle east. 

The crepes came together quickly while Lena frowned as Hope spoke.

"Reports say that large caches of weapons have been found in Gulmira. Officials say they will deploy -"

"Hope," Lena cut her off sharply, "Where is Gulmira?"

The AI rattled off coordinates in the same monotone she had reported Senator Young's pornography scandal. Lena frowned, staring unseeing at the completed plates in front of her. 

Those coordinates were for Syria. Not far from where she'd been found, if she remembered correctly. More likely than not, the weapons in question were Luthor Corp weapons. 

Lena twisted her fingers into the drying ends of her hair, stuck between determination and guilt. 

"Hope, how close is the Mark 3 to completion?"

"Rendering completed while you were out yesterday evening, Miss Luthor."

"Set it to paint, Hope."

"Of course, Miss Luthor."

With a shaky breath, Lena left the kitchen, making her way silently back to the bedroom to rouse Kara.

Kara was in the same place, same position as Lena had left her, the only difference being she had found a pillow to hold in place of Lena. Kara was having some of the absolutely best sleep of her life. A little drool stain on the pillow proved it.

Lena paused in the doorway, her heart giving a funny little flutter as she watched Kara mumble something in her sleep. It was almost a shame to wake her up, Lena thought with a fond smile. Crossing to the bed, Lena smoothed her hand up the curve of Kara's back, dropping gentle kisses to Kara's exposed shoulder.

"Darling, wake up. I made you breakfast."

Kara mumbled something else, grinning still with her eyes closed. She took a deep breath and sighed, the smell of warm breakfast food rousing her some more. Drowsy blue eyes opened to the scene of Lena's bedroom and the woman leaned over kissing her shoulder.

"Mmm, so that wasn't just a really nice dream," Kara murmured and sat up slowly. She wiped the little drool line off her face and smiled warmly, "Good morning,  _ girl _ friend."

"Good morning," Lena leaned in and pressed a kiss to Kara's sleep warm cheek. "There's an extra toothbrush in the bathroom for you. Would you like coffee?" 

She couldn't seem to keep her hands from touching Kara, brushing her hair out of her face and tracing the defined lines of the blonde's arms. This would be a problem at the office, she knew, but right now she could see no reason not to indulge.

"Sounds good," Kara smiled and leaned up and gave Lena a proper kiss, "I'll need lots of sugar and milk though." Kara's smile widened till she looked like a child at Christmas, "I can't drink it like you. Half a spoon of sugar. Gross."

Lena tested her forehead against Kara's, an amused smile on her face. "That's a milkshake that you're describing, I hope you know that." Straightening, Lena took a step back toward the door. "Don't worry, I'll reheat it after I ruin a perfectly good French roast."

Kara laughed and swung her legs over the bed which reminded her that she was  _ very _ naked. She scrambled around the room for her clothes, pulling them all on with astounding speed and then went to brush her teeth in Lena's bathroom. 

It was huge. Perhaps the size of her normal bedroom in her apartment. Or that's what it felt like anyway. She brushed her teeth and pulled her hair up, looking a bit more herself and then left the bedroom to finally figure out the source of the delightful smell.

"Lena Luthor has made me breakfast," Kara teased and moved into the kitchen, genuinely curious, "I didn't know you could cook. If you can cook then how is it I always have to remind you to eat?"

Lena turned with Kara's pale coffee in hand, a perfectly arched eyebrow raised. "The ability to cook and the time for it don't always work together." She gave Kara a teasing wink as she pressed the mug with little ships into her hand, "I'd ask you if you want savory or sweet for breakfast, but after making your coffee, I think I know."

Kara beamed, holding the warm cup in her hands with a gentle smile, "You'd probably be right. But I do want to try everything.*

With a broad smile, one that Lena was certain would become a permanent feature if Kara kept up like this, she directed Kara to a stool at the counter, explaining each crepe to her. She couldn’t help but laugh a little at Kara’s wrinkled nose when she told her there were mushrooms in the savory plate, but Kara vowed to try it anyway. 

It was the best morning Lena could remember having in years, and she hadn’t even finished her own coffee yet. 

Kara ate everything, just as she promised. She had to say, the savory one wasn't  _ bad _ , but she much preferred the sweet crepes Lena had made instead. And it showed, because as soon as Lena had her fill, Kara ate the rest of them. All of them.

The blonde sat back, completely satisfied having a series of empty plates in front of her and she turned to look at Lena, "Told you I ate a lot." It sounded like a boast.

“It’s not that I didn’t believe you,” Lena smiled over the edge of her atom mug, dragging her eyes down Kara’s form before bringing them slowly back up to the blonde’s eyes. “But where do you put it all?”

“Miss Luthor,” Hope interrupted, “You have an incoming call on your work line.”

Lena left her eyes on Kara for a beat longer before turning her attention to the nebulous hourglass. “Put it through, Hope.”

“ _ Uh, hi. Is this Lena? _ ” Alex’s voice sounded awkward and worried.

_ Oh god. _ Kara's eyes widened considerably and she looked positively mortified. Alex was calling Lena. She almost choked on her coffee.

Lena raised both eyebrows at Kara, but her voice was boardroom calm. “This is. May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“ _ Oh, right. Sorry. This is Detective Alex Danvers. I’m Kara’s sister. She… well, she didn’t come home last night, and she’s not answering her phone, and the last I knew she was working that banquet thing for you but she said she’d be home by eleven and it doesn’t look like she’s been here at all - _ ”

Lena couldn’t help the amusement in her voice. It seemed Kara came by her rambling through nurture versus nature. “Detective, I assure you your sister is just fine. She’s here, as a matter of fact.”

“ _ I - what? She’s… um. Did she crash on your couch or something? _ ”

*Hey Alex," Kara said tentatively. She still looked terrified and a deep blush was creeping up her neck. One of her hands came up to hide her face too, "I slept here…" she said, giving no further distinction or detail and hoped Alex wouldn't ask.

“I apologize, Detective. I required your sister's services quite late last night.” The amusement in her eyes luckily did not bleed into her voice. “I kept her busy until it was too late for her to walk home.” 

“ _ Services. Like. Paperwork stuff, right? _ ” Alex didn’t want to believe anything else. She one hundred percent did  _ not  _ want to think of her sister helping her boss she had a raging crush on in any other capacity. 

Green eyes widened innocently at Kara. 

Kara groaned softly and hoped her sister didn't hear it. She looked at Lena through her fingers, clearly embarrassed beyond measure, "Uhm…  _ adrenaline _ , Alex." Oh, that would not go over well. 

“ _ Oh my God, Kara, no! _ ” Alex was practically shouting down the line, and Hope helpfully lowered her own volume. “ _ As much as I’m going to hate it, we are  _ going _ to talk about this later. Just… ugh, shower before you come home, okay? _ ” The line clicked as Alex hung up.

Lena took a long sip of her coffee while Kara hid her face in her hands. She let the silence drag on for one minute, then another, before she finally set her mug down. “Am I going to need to increase security at work to keep your sister from trying to kill me?” she asked mildly. 

Kara groaned again, louder this time, "Ugh, maybe…" she slid off the barstool and ran a hand through her hair, "I'm really sorry. Like,  _ really _ sorry. I didn't know–I mean usually she's not–ugh, I'm just sorry. That was morbidly embarrassing."

“I think it’s very sweet your sister cares about you enough to track you down through your boss, who she’s never met.” Lena turned on her stool, snagging Kara’s shirt and pulling the taller woman to her. She wrapped her arms snuggly around Kara’s waist, looking up at her. “I don’t think that you have anything to be embarrassed about. Then again, I’m not the one that will have to face her later.”

"See, you're a force," Kara complimented, "But you have not seen Alex Danvers angry. I've only been able to withstand all those board meeting faces you make because I've grown up with something equally fear instilling," she teased, leaning into Lena's embrace. She was still so astounded that they were here. It felt like a dream she should wake up from. Alex would probably fix that right up. 

"I should probably go and face it sooner rather than later. The more time she has to process between now and tomorrow the better."

“Mm,” Lena rested her cheek on Kara’s chest, reluctant to let go. Beneath her ear, she could hear the steady beat of Kara’s heart. It made her tighten her arms a little more, holding the blonde close. “Are you sure you shouldn’t shower before you go? She seemed quite firm on that point.”

And Lena was not above taking another opportunity to see Kara naked. It would likely be the thing most frequently on her mind for weeks to come. 

"Miss Luthor, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to seduce me," Kara teased and found Lena's lips with her own to kiss her firmly. "I guess I should...want to help?"

“Yes, please.”

_____

  
  


Alex was pacing when Kara got home. Already not a morning person, she had barely slept last night, too worried about Kara to convince her exhausted body to rest. Now, hyped up on too much coffee, she was feeling anxious and jittery. She jerked to face the door when she heard the knob jiggle, and tried to sort her limbs into an imposing stance.

What she settled with was a deep frown, and her arms crossed in front of her chest. 

Kara came in and set her duffle down by the door and dropped her keys off in the bowl. When she turned around Alex was waiting for her and she jumped a little, " _ Jesus _ , Alex." Her sister looked ready to arrest her. Kara wouldn't put it past her. "Well, go ahead."

“Kara, I need you to know that when I say this, I say it with the utmost sincerity…” Alex took a step forward and placed her hands down on the counter, leaning into the words intensely. “What the  _ fuck _ , Kara.”

"Yeah, okay, I deserve that," Kara sighed, "Uhm, so...we danced together," and then Kara went into the most elaborate telling of the night before, leaving out details that Alex definitely  _ did not _ need or want. "And then I walked back and I kissed her like an idiot and then she kissed me," and then she very quickly skimmed over what came after. By the end it had been nearly an hour and she was blushing again. "And.. she's my girlfriend and she's coming for dinner tomorrow."

Somewhere during Kara’s explanation, Alex found herself leaving the kitchen and dropping heavily onto the couch. When Kara finally stopped talking, Alex shook her head in disbelief. “I swear to God, only you could go to work and then end the day with Lena freakin’ Luthor as your girlfriend.”

It was only eleven in the morning and Alex felt like she could use a very stiff drink.

“Do you want me to swap my shift tomorrow? Or keep it? I bet I could get Wallace to take another one…”

"I would like two of my three favorite women able to eat dinner with me for my birthday at the same time, but if you don't think you can behave yourself then I can just do lunch with you," Kara said and stood in front of Alex with her own arms crossed.

Alex groaned, rubbing her forehead. "It's not that, Kar. I'm just worried you're getting in over your head. I mean, between her family, and then  _ her _ reputation… what am I supposed to think, here? What will Mom think?"

"Hey, I've dealt with her mom before," Kara defended, avoiding the main problem in Alex's list of concerns. The way Alex mentioned Lena's reputation had Kara a little apprehensive, but Lena had assured her that this wasn't the same. 

"I'm not worried about her reputation, Alex. She said this was different and I trust her," Kara said firmly, but she knew Alex would see it as a naive mistake. "And I…" Kara's hand came up to hold her other arm. Alex would easily note she was nervous now, "I wasn't going to tell mom, yet.  _ You're _ not going to tell her either!"

"Oh, Kara…" Alex stood, shaking her head. Kara was in so deep she couldn't see the sun. "I won't, for now. But I hope you know what you're doing."

_____

"Please try to be nice tonight, Alex. I really want you two to get along," Kara said as they got off the bus, "It's my birthday wish. You wouldn't deny me a birthday wish, would you, Alex?" Kara turned around to wait for her sister. She had basically complained the entire bus ride about going out to dinner somewhere so fancy.

Kara had tried to explain Lena wanted to take her somewhere nice for her birthday but Alex only seemed to get more annoyed the more she tried to tell her. She was starting to worry. She had dressed up nice and everything, wearing her favorite blue button down she hoped Lena would like. Alex had been annoyed at that too.

"I just don't get why we couldn't go somewhere normal, that's all. Like the Waffle House, or Pims! You know they always do bottomless potstickers for your birthday," Alex was practically begging, like she could still change the course of the evening if she just tried hard enough.

She tried all the way up to the moment they set foot in what was hands down the fanciest restaurant she had ever been in. Instead of tables in one large dining room, each table had its own alcove with a privacy screen blocking the view of its occupants. A young woman approached them, an unsure look on her face as she looked them up and down.

"Welcome to the Nine's, do you… have a reservation?" 

Alex bristled immediately. She was already annoyed because Kara had made her wear the least comfortable clothes in existence, and it wasn't even enough to convince this twenty something hostess that they belonged there. Before she could open her mouth to say anything, Kara answered.

"We do. Reservation for three under Luthor. Lena Luthor," Kara said confidently, not bothered at all. After all, she  _ was _ used to this more than Alex.

"Let me just double check," the hostess hedged, and Alex didn't bother hiding her disgruntled snort as she walked away.

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, ignoring the sharp look she got from Kara.

The hostess popped back up with a professionally apologetic look on her face, "Will Miss Luthor be joining you soon? I'm sure you understand, we can't just give a reservation away…"

"Yes, she's coming soon," Kara answered and her shoulders squared a little more, "and she expects her friends to already be seated when she gets here, enjoying the pleasant and highly sought after atmosphere of your fine establishment. If she finds out you've kept her waiting be sure that you  _ and _ your manager can expect a lengthy conversation," Kara said stiffly, all the while pulling out her L Corp badge from her wallet to hold it up, displaying her title and just exactly how well she knew Lena Luthor.

Alex stared at her sister as the hostess babbled out an apology and led them deeper into the restaurant. Dimly, she noticed they were headed all the way to the back, as far from prying eyes as they could get.

Was that by Lena's design, or the restaurant's, to keep them out of sight?

"Jeeze, Kar. You shouldn't have to throw down just to get service for your own birthday dinner," Alex said as they sat.

"Alex it's fine. It doesn't bother me," Kara said, trying to soothe her sister's metaphorical ruffled feathers. "I throw down on a regular basis, believe it or not. That was just like a typical Tuesday for me."

Alex didn't look convinced, but said nothing, turning her attention to the menu instead. After a moment, she set it down carefully. "Why aren't there prices on this menu?"

"Don't worry about that, Detective." Lena's voice interrupted from the doorway. "I thought I might treat the three of us to dinner, in honor of Kara's birthday. Hello, darling." She dropped a kiss to Kara's lips as she took the seat next to her. "Sorry I'm late."

She had come straight from the office. There had been a breach in security in the labs that she had wanted to address personally.

"It's okay," Kara beamed, glad that Lena had finally arrived. She had an excellent poker face but Kara could tell something had riled Lena a little bit. She was, typically, punctual if she could help it. Kara decided to ask about it later, however, and not at dinner.

"I'm glad you could both come. It means a lot to me. Now officially, Lena Luthor, this is my sister Alex. Alex...this is Lena," Kara said the last a little more cautiously and her eyes practically pleaded for Alex to behave.

Alex widened her eyes with faux innocence, missing the mark by a mile. When she turned toward Lena with a smile, it was cold. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lena. Kara's told me so much about you."

She stared hard at the dark haired woman next to her sister, taking in the fitted blouse that undoubtedly cost more than Alex's entire outfit, and the sleek black pencil skirt. Alex had never wondered why Kara found her boss attractive, the woman had looks that could kill. But she had always wondered about the personality behind them, and she could find no trace of the woman Kara spoke so fondly of in the CEO in front of her.

Under the table, Lena tensed her fingers on Kara's knee. "You as well, Alex." Lena spoke deliberately, her gaze never wavering from Alex's.

She'd be damned before she let some two bit interrogation technique make her sweat.

"Thank you for adjusting your plans to include me," Lena smiled tensely. "It's hard to find an establishment that values privacy as much as I do. It means a lot to me to be able to join you both on your night out."

Kara could tell the two were being tense with each other. She definitely knew Alex was and she had grown to know what Lena's boardroom smile looked like. The blonde tried to accept that at least they were both being civil and was determined to enjoy her birthday.

After some awkward silence everyone seemed to look at their menu which at least Kara didn't need to worry about. Only she was so used to just picking up food for Lena that when she saw no prices she bit her lower lip. This was definitely the best restaurant she had ever been in. She didn't know what to get but knew all of it was probably outrageously expensive. Kara sighed and leaned towards Lena while Alex was looking her menu over.

"So," Kara reached a hand down and touched fingers to Lena's on her knee, "What should I get?"

Lena glanced across the table at Alex, who was scowling at her menu, then back to Kara's warm blue eyes. She gave Kara a small smile, flipping her hand over to squeeze Kara’s fingers. “Would you trust me to order for you?” She asked, at the same time that Alex muttered something about burgers. 

Kara thought about it and took her own glance at Alex. It would probably annoy her sister even more, but Kara nodded, "I trust you," she whispered. "You know I'll eat almost anything," she smiled then and put her menu down. Time to address the beast.

"What do you think looks good, Alex?" Kara asked tentatively, expecting some storm of answer.

“A steak, probably.” Alex answered stiffly, determinedly ignoring the exchange happening across from her.

“An excellent choice, Detective.” Lena smiled demurely, which seemed to annoy Alex even more. 

The waitress came in to check on them and take their drink order. Lena ordered a bottle of red for the table, which Alex thanked her for a little gruffly. Lena marked it as a win, regardless. There was no difference in opinion so bad that good wine couldn’t help. 

“Are you ready to order entrees?” The waitress asked, her attention only on Lena. Alex shifted uncomfortably in her seat. It was bad enough from the hostess, but now the waitress, too?

“Yes, thank you,” Lena smiled politely, gesturing for Alex to order first. The waitress nodded along to Alex’s order, asking the appropriate questions about desired doneness and sides, before turning pointedly back to Lena.

Alex stared Lena down as she ordered, her dark eyes serious. Lena was sure that as soon as the waitress was gone, she would be on the receiving end of protective threats on Kara's behalf. 

The only thing that kept her in her seat was Kara's presence next to her, warm and loving and everything that Lena was fairly certain she didn't deserve.

Sure enough, as the waitress stepped out of their alcove, Alex's mouth opened, and Lena tensed instinctively. 

"So, Lena."

Lena smiled blandly, giving Alex a little nod to continue.

"You and my sister."

She smoothed her hand out flat against Kara's thigh, keeping her fingers tensed straight out. "I hate to ruin what I'm sure are well thought out and well intentioned threats on my health, but your sister is by far the most important person in my life, Detective. You don't need to bully me into treating her well."

Alex raised her eyebrows, "Oh, I'm not so worried about how you'll treat her," she gave Lena a shark like smile, "I'm more concerned about how her association with you will damage her future."

" _ Alex _ !!"

"No, Kara, let her finish." 

"Your reputation leaves a lot to be desired, you know. From where I'm sitting, it looks like Kara is just the most recent in a long line of nameless women."

"Perhaps you should adjust where you're sitting," Lena offered quietly, her voice little more than a deadly whisper. "While it's true that I rarely bring the same woman to any event twice, it would suit your purposes better if you did your research outside of sources like the  _ Enquirer _ ." Alex was steadily turning red, the color creeping up her neck as Lena spoke. "If you had looked even slightly deeper, you would have realized that each one of those women was either an oncoming investor, scientist, or intern that benefited multiple connections out of each event attended."

"And what did you benefit out of it?" Alex's voice was hard, and Lena smiled at her benignly.

"Privacy, Detective Danvers. As I'm sure you know, a woman in my position is always under scrutiny from someone, whether it's a well intentioned policeman," Lena's smile turned almost feral, and Alex had the good sense to look a little ashamed, "Or the paparazzi who would love nothing more than to see me falter, privacy is a commodity that I don't take lightly. Having a new face with me at each event allows me to control the narrative, direct the questions where I am comfortable with, rather than leaving me at the mercy of some reporter looking to make a name for themselves."

Alex opened her mouth to interrupt, and Lena held up a hand to silence her. "I'm not finished. Your sister means more to me than the privacy I have cultivated for years. I will do everything in my not inconsiderable power to ensure that Kara is safe, happy, and cared for. If that means she chooses to become a consistent fixture at the events I must attend, that's up to her, but rest assured that the parade of women that you have seen in the past has reached its end."

"As for her future, Kara is nearing the end of her contract as my assistant. I imagine it will be pertinent to redistribute her talents, hopefully within L-Corp, but I'll support her in whatever endeavor she decides to undertake."

Kara had steadily grabbed Lena's hand on her knee harder and harder through the course of the conversation, the rest of her body tense. One thing. One single thing. She had literally only asked one thing of Alex and she had made it a grand total of fifteen minutes. Kara didn't know if she wanted to yell or cry or both. It showed around the edge of her eyes, which had reddened some and in her lips which were set into a firm line, unusual for her.

Even with Lena saying such sweet things. Things Kara had hoped and wished to hear for a while. She didn't know how she could feel so loved and so upset all at once. Kara let go of Lena's hand and swiped at her eyes while she pushed her chair out behind her. The lights in the restaurant flickered. A quick mumbled, "I gotta go to the bathroom," and then Kara left the table rather quickly and disappeared.

Alex glanced up at the lights, a wrinkle forming between her brows. “I should go after her,” she muttered, starting to push back her chair. 

“You should do no such thing.” Lena’s voice was hard, now, and with Kara out of the room, she let the tight control she had on her anger slip just a little. Alex gulped, and Lena smiled at her viciously. 

In the detectives defense, she thought, at least some of her reputation had been earned fairly. She’d been heralded as a workaholic, a power hungry bitch, an ice queen, a slut even, and Lena conceded she had been all of those things in some capacity. Right now, she was filled with white hot rage on Kara’s behalf, and Alex was about to realize why Lena’s competitors never stayed in the field long.

“It is her birthday, Detective. She has spoken of little else for the last two days. Kara has been so excited to get the two of us in one room to celebrate the very thing that makes both of us happy - her life. And yet, here we are, arguing over her like spoilt children over a toy.”

Lena stood, her heels giving her a considerable height advantage over the seated detective. “I am going to go make sure Kara’s alright, and when we get back, you and I will pretend that none of this happened. We are going to get along, if only for tonight,  _ for Kara _ . Is that understood?”

Alex nodded numbly, watching Lena leave with wide, unblinking eyes.

The CEO followed Kara’s path to the bathrooms, trying to calm her racing heart. The lights were still flickering off and on, and she wondered if maybe the weather had turned outside. An early summer storm, maybe? 

She paused in front of the closed restroom door, knocking gently on the single occupancy door. “Kara?”

Kara honestly didn't know if she wanted to open the door, even for Lena. She could hardly breathe and couldn't get herself to calm down. She needed Alex, but Alex was the one who had caused the issue to begin with. The blonde conceded and opened the door slowly, revealing tear stained cheeks and eyes that wouldn't meet Lena's.

"Oh, darling," Lena took a half a step forward before she paused, "Can I hug you?"

Kara nodded and opened the bathroom door wider to let Lena come in. Before the other woman even made a move to hold her, Kara was wrapping her arms around her and buried her face in Lena's shoulder. The lights flickered still, but less frequently, even as Kara's breathing remained uneven. She didn't know what to say and she felt like a child for being so upset but she couldn't help it.

"I'm so sorry," Lena murmured into Kara's hair, rubbing her back. "I know this isn't how you wanted tonight to go."

"It's not your fault," Kara murmured and just let Lena soothe her. She began to relax and her tears stopped though she could still feel the sticky salt of tears on her cheeks.

Lena rested her cheek against the crown of Kara's head. She took a moment to revel in the soft intimacy they shared, pressing a kiss close to the blonde's ear. "I'm not blameless," she admitted, "I didn't have to engage in the conversation."

She rubbed Kara's back for a moment more, "Will you come back with me? I promise you, the rest of the evening will be better."

Kara just tried to breathe evenly, calmly again for a few seconds before she nodded. Kara pulled back, only a few inches, and finally managed to look Lena in the eye, "Did uhm...did you really mean all those things you said at the table?"

Lena brought a hand up, brushing her thumb along Kara's cheek. "Every word," she whispered.

Kara kissed her, hands on either side of Lena's face and keeping her close before she seemed to realize they were still in a bathroom. "S-sorry," Kara mumbled as she pulled back, "I definitely want to be there at all your events. And how will you even plan them without me?"

Her eyes had fluttered closed during the kiss, and Lena didn't open them right away. She gave a small chuckle and blinked her eyes open slowly. "It would be much harder without you, darling. I don't particularly want to imagine it."

"I don't think you'll have to," Kara admitted and then pulled away fully. She went over and put some cool water on her face before she wiped it off with a towel and sighed, "Okay, I'm ready."

They returned to the table hand in hand. Food had been delivered while they were gone, and Alex offered a sheepish expression. Lena met it with a stern look from over Kara's shoulder, and Alex nodded.

"So, Detective -"

"Call me Alex, please."

Lena smiled, "Alex," she corrected, "tell me about your most recent case."

_____

"Thank you so much for dinner, Lena. I'm glad you and Alex got along at the end. That's all I wanted. It was a good birthday," Kara smiled as Lena let them into the penthouse.

She had to admit, her sister had been considerably more well behaved after she had gotten back from the bathroom, and Lena had appeared a lot more open and genuine. It hadn't been perfect, but Kara had seen them try, really try and it made her feel loved, by both women.

She knew Alex would probably have a long conversation with her when she was home again, but Kara found she wasn't dreading it. "Still impressed I ate all three entrees, or disgusted?" She teased.

Lena laughed, gratefully stepping out of her heels with one hand on Kara's arm to keep her balance. "I find you endlessly impressive. The waitress, on the other hand…" she trailed off with a wink.

"Okay, that's fair," Kara laughed lightly and bent over and untied her shoes and left them by the door. Deft fingers undid the buttons on her cuffs and she rolled them up her arms a little, feeling warm before she sighed, content. "Really Lena, thank you," she reached to hold Lena's hand and gave it a little squeeze, "all those things you said before...it made me feel special. I think if you had a new contract ready, I'd sign it right now."

“I knew I forgot something,” Lena teased gently, returning the squeeze. “I hope it wasn’t too much. I know we’ve only just started, but you aren’t a decision I’m making lightly.”

She let go of Kara’s hand to move toward the bedroom, “Now, I’d love to get out of this skirt. I wasn’t anticipating spending the day in it when I went to the office this morning.”

"Ah yes, there it is. Even on a Sunday the mighty Lena Luthor has to go to work," Kara teased and followed her into the bedroom, "I figured that's where you were when you were late. Why did you have to go in?"

Lena groaned in disgust, unzipping the skirt at the back. “There was a security breach in research and development. Nothing was stolen, thank God,” she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, stepping out of the skirt and dropping it on the foot of the bed. “But the breach had to be addressed.”

She fished around in the large dresser that dominated one wall, producing a well worn pair of her favorite lounge pants. “It’s strange, though. There was no sign of a virus, it almost looked like whoever organized the cyber attack knew enough about our encryption to target it’s weakest points.”

The tightly fitted blouse joined the discarded skirt, and Lena paused with her hand on her hip, standing in nothing but her underwear with the arc reactor beaming. “Which we’ve patched now, of course.”

"Of course," Kara said grinning from ear to ear as she listened to Lena talk and watch her get undressed. "Sounds like a stressful day," Kara said gently and stepped forward, one purposeful step at a time until she was right behind Lena. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and Kara placed a series of affectionate kisses between Lena's shoulder blades.

"Hmm," Lena smiled, leaning back into Kara's embrace. "It's getting better by the second, darling."

"It  _ is _ my birthday," Kara cooed and Lena would be able to hear the cheshire grin in her voice. She kissed Lena's back again and held her close, "You sure you want comfy clothes right now?"

Lena's breath hitched as Kara pressed the length of her body against her, the grip on her lounge pants loosening. "I got you a cake," she protested weakly, her head tipping back against Kara's shoulder to give the other woman unfettered access to her neck.

"I do like cake," Kara breathed and made a steady trail of kisses up from Lena's back, over her shoulder, and to her neck. She nipped there, taking some of the skin of Lena's neck between her teeth gently before she sucked lightly.

One hand smoothed down Lena's thigh and held there firmly. The other flattened out against her abdomen, pinky teasing the edge of Lena's underwear.

The pants hit the ground with a flutter, Lena's hands coming to rest on top of Kara's. "It'll keep," she murmured, pressing down on the hand at the band of lace across her hips. 

A genuine light laugh came out of Kara and she took Lena's hint. She kissed her neck again and pulled Lena as close into her as she could get. The hand under Lena's slid down into her lace panties. Gentle but eager fingers entered slick heat and Kara just grinned. "Happy Birthday indeed."

_____

Later, when Lena had finally managed to catch her breath, she led Kara out to the kitchen in only a loose shirt and underwear to present her with what was in reality a large cupcake. 

"I wanted to make you one myself, but I ran out of time. Happy birthday, darling."

"I love it," Kara smiled fondly and planted a kiss on Lena's lips. She gave her a little squeeze around the shoulders before she turned back to the cake, "Split it with me?" She asked eagerly. One finger swiped off some of the icing and plopped it onto Lena's nose with a laugh.

Lena fixed Kara with her most intimidating boardroom stare, her hands on her hips and frosting slipping down the bridge of her nose. "Oh, you are in  _ so _ much trouble," she growled, wiping the frosting off her nose and darting toward Kara in one quick movement. She caught the open lapel of the blue button up as Kara tried to run, smearing the frosting across her cheek.

Kara shrieked and laughed as Lena spread frosting all over her cheek. She stuck her tongue out to see how much she could lick off but couldn't reach much of it. Kara surged up and kissed the tip of Lena's nose and then licked the rest of the icing off of her nose. "Help me out?" Kara asked sweetly and tugged the front of Lena's shirt.

She let herself be pulled in, enjoying the brush of Kara's bare legs against her own. Lena smiled wickedly, spreading the frosting around rather than cleaning it up. "You got yourself into it," Lena pressed a kiss delicately to a clean spot on Kara's jaw. "You can get yourself out of it."

"Painting operations completed, Miss Luthor." Hope reported from her corner, and Lena tensed as the AI spoke.

Kara was still smiling, about to gather some more icing and show Lena a real mess before Hope's words stopped her. "What were you painting, Lee?" Kara asked as she wiped off her cheek with a paper towel. Lena looked a little too tense for it to be something simple, "You didn't want me to know, did you?"

Lena sighed heavily, pushing her hair back out of her face as Kara stepped away from her. "I didn't want it to come up  _ today _ ," she corrected. "It's your birthday, and I had a whole speech planned to bring it up with you tomorrow."

"Well... just give it to me now," Kara said and crossed her arms, "is it the suit? You painted the suit?"

"I did," Lena admitted reluctantly. In for a penny… "There's an armory full of Luthor Corp weapons in a little town in Syria, not far from where I was recovered. I won't…" she shifted awkwardly, twisting the ends of her hair in her fingers, "I won't go, if you don't want me to, but I feel like this is something I'm responsible for, Kara. I'm the one who put those weapons out there, I need to make sure they can't be used to hurt anyone."

Kara sighed, nodding, but it was more to herself than for Lena. She leaned back against the counter and looked at their feet. She really wanted to ask Lena to stay. She wanted to trust that if she did then Lena wouldn't go, like she said...but Kara knew better.

"Just tell me before you go, okay? I don't want it to be like last time and I wake up at one am and you're falling from the sky," Kara asked seriously and she pinned Lena with a look to match, "If you're going to hide stuff and lie then…" Kara chewed on her bottom lip. She didn't want to say what the rest of her sentence implied. She loved Lena but Kara didn't think she could take it if something else happened to her.

Guilt settled over her, "I know I lied to you once, but I promise you, Kara, I won't do it again." Lena moved back into Kara's space, dipping her head slightly to force Kara to meet her eyes.

Kara looked at Lena like she clearly wanted, but she looked sad for the second time that night, "As long as you promise," Kara repeated and pushed off the counter and wrapped her hands around Lena and hugged her softly.

"Okay, show me this paint job."

"In a minute," Lena wound her arms around Kara's middle, hiding her face in Kara's shoulder. "I'm sorry," she murmured, so quietly she wasn't sure that Kara had heard her. 

And she was sorry, for everything. She was sorry for the sins of her family, sorry that she felt like she had to repent for them. She was sorry she had been kidnapped and scared Kara, sorry she had ever lied to the sunny blonde, and sorrier still that she knew the path she was on was dangerous and that she could do nothing about the sense of obligation that sent her down it.

Kara held her, enjoying the warmth that having Lena in her arms brought her. She wasn't sure she would ever be able to get used to it. She squeezed her a little tighter after a few long moments of silence. "I know. It's okay," she whispered and turned her hand and planted a firm kiss to the top of her head. "I believe you. You have to do what you have to do. I understand."

"I ruined your birthday. Twice." Lena mumbled.

"Hey, no," Kara shook her head and pulled back just enough to be able to look down at Lena. She used a gentle hand under Lena's chin to lift her face. Once green eyes were on hers, Kara was satisfied, "I've had a wonderful birthday. I'm dating Lena  _ Luthor _ . She paid for my food. I had dinner with two of the most important people in my life. I got to have  _ sex _ with my girlfriend," Kara grinned and kissed Lena's forehead, "and she got me a cake. I found out my girlfriend really supports me and wants to take care of me. She thinks I'm special. I've had a  _ wonderful _ birthday," Kara repeated, "I've got everything I wanted  _ right here. _ "

By the time Kara was done, Lena had a small smile on her face. "Is this one of those impassioned speeches I've heard so much about?" she teased hesitantly. 

"Maybe so," Kara smiled fondly at the tease. She kissed the top of Lena's head again and gave her an affectionate squeeze. "Lena, you're so stubborn–mm, no, tenacious and headstrong. You have a huge heart. I've always known that, otherwise why would you work so hard to change your company and go from producing weapons to focussing on humanitarian efforts? You care about people, you want to help people, even if you keep most of them at arm's length...with a ten foot pole," Kara chuckled.

"You're a powerhouse. If you want something done, it gets done.  _ And _ to top it all off, you're a genius. You're the smartest person I know. And  _ so _ , so caring. So I know that if you feel like this is something you need to do, you aren't going to let anyone stop you, because it's…" Kara sighed, "it's the right thing to do, for you. And I know you'll be safe, because the suit is something  _ you _ made. You made one in a cave in Syria out of scraps. So I know this suit...it will bring you back just like the first one did."

Kara took a breath and pulled back, " _ That _ was an impassioned speech."

Lena pressed up onto her toes and kissed Kara soundly, ignoring for the moment the wet tracks down her cheeks. After a long moment, Lena sank back down, heart in her throat. "That was some speech," she said finally, voice soft. 

"I don't know what I've done to deserve you, Kara," she admitted, then took a step back, finding Kara's hands with her own. "Come with me." 

Lena tugged gently, leading Kara back down the hallway to the lab that took up the majority of the floor. She paused at the closed door, glancing over her shoulder at Kara nervously. "Are you sure you want to see it?"

"See the thing that I expect to keep you safe and bring you back in one piece? Oh yeah, absolutely," Kara nodded firmly and gave Lena's hand a gentle squeeze, "Show me."

The lights clicked automatically on as the lab door swung open. In the corner, just as Hope had said, the Mark 3 stood completed. It was a deep green, with black and silver accenting. The mask itself shone in the light, the eyes dark. 

It was sleeker than the version before, faster. She had spent hours fine tuning the control, tightening turns and acceleration.

Lena tried to keep her fingers from anxiously twisting. The last time Kara had been in the lab, they hadn't spoken for days. 

"What do you think?"

Kara took in the sight with as much of an open mind as she could muster. Everything about it seemed to fit Lena perfectly, from the sleekness to the color. Still, she eyed it critically. It was one thing to just look pretty.

"What's it made out of? Did you solve the icing problem Hope talked about? Will your arc reactor be able to handle it?"

"It's made out of nitinol, a nickel and titanium alloy, so it's light enough to move but if it takes any damage," Lena hesitated, knowing Kara would hate the thought, but she'd asked and Lena had promised not to lie to her, "I can repair it. I've run countless simulations for icing, you can get the records from Hope if you'd like. It shouldn't be a problem again."

Absurdly, she felt a little like she was giving Kara a product pitch, standing in her cold lab in only her underwear and an oversized shirt.

"Everything about this suit is designed within what the arc reactor can handle." Lena caught her lower lip between her teeth nervously. She couldn't quite get a read on Kara's expression. It seemed to be somewhere between distaste and resignation. 

"It will keep you safe?" Kara asked, turning to Lena and away from the suit and looking at her girlfriend.

"Yes." Lena tried to sound as sure as she felt about it. 

Kara took a breath and then nodded, "Okay. You have my permission, even though you don't need it." She leaned in and kissed Lena on the cheek then turned back to look at the suit, still with an eye of scrutiny. Kara tried to trust Lena's confidence.

Lena let out a relieved sigh, her shoulders drooping a little. "Thank you, darling. Why don't we go revisit that cake idea?"

_____

Monday brought endless meetings. Lena had been on her feet for most of the day, and by the time most people were filtering out of L-Corp, she was ready to sink into bed with Kara and not emerge. Except, Kara was already out of the office and presumably home with her sister, and Lena had plans that involved corporate domination of a different type. 

Kara had left Lena with a lingering kiss and a whisper of, “Be careful, please.” It tugged at her heart even as she smiled and promised she would be just fine. 

The penthouse was dark when she stepped inside. Rather than turning on any lights, Lena moved confidently through her space illuminated only by Hope’s gentle glow in the kitchen. She changed into clothes that would comfortably fit under the Mark 3, feeling disconnected from the action. 

Hope lit the lab as she entered, and Lena stepped into the newly marked platform. “Deploy Mark 3,” she said softly, Hope’s  _ yes, Miss Luthor _ drowned out by the answering whirr from the robotic arms that began to assemble the suit onto her. The mask clinked down over her face, and she held her breath while she waited for the HUD to illuminate. 

The flight to Syria was faster in the suit than the jet, and Lena spent the time considering her options once she made it to Gulmira. Hope had supplied helpful updates on where to avoid as she flew, dropping altitude when necessary to escape view of any international flights. The sky was lightening as she approached the coordinates she had memorized, and Lena pulled up hard to bring herself to a full stop in the air, the only things keeping her aloft now the pulsing thrusters at her feet.

Down below her, Gulmira looked like any other small village in Syria. People roamed the streets, in and out of buildings, pushing carts and occasionally pausing to talk to someone they passed. What was different, she noticed immediately, was that everyone seemed to be avoiding one building that seemed slightly farther away from the rest. She dropped a little to get a closer look, squinting at what appeared to be armed guards at the front.

She’d bet her majority shares in L-Corp that was the house she was looking for.

Hovering for another moment, her suspicions were confirmed when someone approached the house and was immediately held at gunpoint. 

Even from as high up as she was, Lena heard the shot like it was right next to her. Her whole body jerked, the sharp movement setting her off balance. “Okay, Hope, you ready?”

“All systems ready, Miss Luthor.”

“Here we go,” Lena said under her breath, already gearing up a repulsor blast in her right hand.

As soon as it let loose, aimed toward the guarded house, it felt like all hell broke loose. Shouts from below coupled with the scream of jets above her, and Lena launched herself into action. 

In the streets of Gulmira below, she swooped down, picking up bystanders and bodily moving them across the village, over and over and over again until there was no one near the now fully engulfed house. Overhead, she could still hear the distinct whine of jet engines as they circled above.

“Miss Luthor, incoming call on your personal line. It appears to be a government issued phone line.”

Lena groaned, eyeing a group of approaching men. More particularly, eyeing the rifles they gripped in front of them.

She knew those guns. 

“Put it through, Hope.”

" _ Lena, it's Sam _ ," Agent Arias said with a sigh as she looked at the screen in front of her. The picture was blurry, but the outline was familiar. The green was a nice touch. " _ Are you busy? _ "

“Oh,  _ hey _ Sam.” Lena raised her hand again, the suit emitting a whine as it powered up her palm for another blast. “No, I’m not busy at all. What can I do for you?” The shot exploded at the feet of the advancing men, knocking them backward. Lena pushed herself up into the air, the roar of air around her distractingly loud.

" _ Are you sure? It kind of sounds like you're busy _ ," Sam said, a teasing undertone as she flipped to the next image. She zoomed out and frowned, " _ I only ask because we've got that UFO I mentioned at the fundraiser showing up here on our radar for Syria. You wouldn't know anything about that would you? _ "

“Huh,” Lena looked down past the HUD to the burning weapons cache below her, and for good measure, shot another repulsor blast at it. “No, can’t say that I do. I wonder what they -  _ shit. _ ” She dropped altitude rapidly. 

A jet was tailing her, occupying the air space Lena had just been in. 

" _ Mhm, yeah, okay. I believe you had a friend advise you to be more careful next time. Whatever you're doing in Syria, Lena–don't fucking lie to me–whatever you're doing there, you need to leave. They're sending jets _ ," Sam shifted her cell to the other ear and turned away from the screen, " _ Lena if  _ we _ see you you're in trouble _ ."

Lena let out a sharp little laugh, "Yeah, about that -" She tucked up as tight as she dared under the jet, glancing behind her. "Any chance the pilots are blind?"

" _ Afraid not–Lena! This is the type of thing we could have helped you with, _ " Sam's voice was a little harsher than normal as she walked away from a few more agents and down an empty hallway. Her voice was lower, " _ we knew about the weapons stash from Luthor Corp, Lena. We've had it pinged for weeks. If you were more patient we could have handled it quietly. As it stands you're about to be all over the news!" _

"I'm always in the news, Sam!" Lena snapped, banking to the left. Maybe she could sneak out from under and disappear in cloud cover. "And if you've known about them for weeks, you should have dealt with it weeks ago! Don't get high and mighty with me because someone else had to come in to do  _ your job _ ."

She was going for it. She was out of options. Slipping up to the left wing, Lena shot skyward, hoping all of her calculations had been correct. This was not a situation she could afford to ice out in.

" _ We were going to handle it quietly. Do you know what quietly means, Lena? It means we don't go in guns blazing and blowing up buildings–yes, I saw that! A quiet operation means we don't alert whoever is storing them before we want them to know. You just wrote them a big fat public 'We're on to you'!" _ Sam shook her head and banged her free fist against the hall wall, " _ You're just lucky you're not the top of our priority list anymore, but that doesn't mean you're off our radar. There's something out there more reckless than you and when we get her, you bet you'll be number one again _ ."

"First off, it wasn't a gun!" Lena knew of all the points to make, this was the least important, but it rankled her all the same. "It's a -" she paused, a chill creeping down her spine that had nothing to do with the jet still somewhere beneath her.

Something tickled at the back of her mind. It made her roll her shoulders uncomfortably, and she shot forward, like if she flew fast enough, she could outrun the need to think about it.

"Second, I'm offended! You'd replace me so soon? Who's the lucky girl, Sam?"

" _ All I can tell you–which I am doing as a favor because you are my  _ friend _ – is that whoever they are, has an electrical signature that is exactly the same as something that got confiscated from your brother when he went...you know. Now, please, for the love of God, get the fuck out of Syria!" _ Sam whispered harshly and hung up as her boss appeared around the corner.

The flight home was a long one that Lena used to try to outrun her thoughts. Even as she touched down in her lab hours later, body exhausted, her mind chewed over Sam's words.

_ Electrical signature _ … 

She needed Lex's files.

_____

Kara had barely slept. She had worried over Lena all night, checking her phone at least once almost every hour hoping to find a message from her girlfriend that said she was home. Well, it was almost time to be at the office again and Kara still hadn't heard anything. She showed up with Lena's coffee two hours early and another package in tow.

She used her key, barely getting it in the lock she was so anxious. The key snapped off in the lock when she turned it and Kara groaned. That would be a bit harder to explain than a stapler. The blonde pushed the door open and shut it again, dropping the coffee and package off on the counter. No lights were on and Kara could tell, if Lena had come home, she wasn't even up yet.

"Lena?" Her voice was cautious, full of concern. When she didn't get an immediate answer Kara started moving towards the bedroom. "Lee?" 

She flicked on the light. No Lena. The hairs on the back of her neck started to rise and she wheeled around heading for the lab, "Hope, wake up. Where is Lena?"

Hope’s hourglass lit up at the same time as a hunk of metal in the corner lifted its head. “Kara?” Lena pushed herself up, halfway in and halfway out of the suit. Her whole body ached and she wanted nothing more than to bury herself under all the blankets she owned, and then maybe a few more.

As she started to stand, the robotic arm next to her started to dismantle the right cuff of the suit, and it shot forward, no longer connected to the metal at her elbow and launched itself into free falling flight. Lena watched it with wide, horrified eyes as it pinged off the casing of the acetylene welder first, then the ceiling, and with increasing shock, rocketed toward Kara.

“Watch -!” 

It was too late. It slammed full force into Kara’s chest with a small explosion, the repulsor in the palm finally giving out. The room was instantly clouded with smoke, heavy and dark in the air. Lena clunked rapidly toward Kara, shedding pieces of the Mark 3 as she went. 

It all happened a bit too fast for Kara. She was flooded with relief, seeing Lena there, even in the state she was, half in and half out of her suit. She looked exhausted, Kara had time to note. The blonde had begun to step towards her, full of anxious energy.

Then the arm of the suit, too quick for her eyes to immediately follow, was hurling towards her. Kara had just enough time to flinch. And then she was  _ falling _ .

_ Her hands hit a solid glittering surface, multifaceted and iridescent. She was engulfed in heat and something strong wrapped around her stomach and jerked her off the ground. There was so much screaming. There was so much smoke. She turned to look back and all she saw was chaos incarnate, a monster made of fire. _

Kara coughed and opened her eyes to a room full of smoke. It made her eyes water and she coughed and waved her hand in front of her, trying to clear the air and catch her breath. What had happened? 

The blonde coughed again and took a step forward, still standing, "L-Lena?!"

Kara stood there like an ox, skin singed grey from a blast and clothes tattered to pieces, half incinerated. The blonde hardly seemed to notice, "Lena, are you okay?!"

“Am I -” Lena was staring, her eyes painfully wide, as she took in the sight of Kara standing there  _ in one piece _ . “How are you - oh my God, Kara!” Tears welled in Lena’s eyes and she launched herself at the still smoking woman in front of her. 

She wrapped her arms tight around Kara, clinging to her desperately. “I’m so sorry! I can’t believe that you’re okay!” 

Panic hit her, and she jerked back, running her hands over Kara’s chest, applying pressure to anything that looked remotely singed. She leaned in, squinting at Kara’s skin. Not even a scratch, her mind noted distantly. Every mark on Kara’s skin rubbed away, leaving it perfectly intact under the grime. 

Kara instinctively took a step back when Lena lunged in, holding her arms out to hug her back and rebalance herself. Then Lena was the one pulling back and rubbing her hands all up and down Kara. The blonde wasn't sure what to think.

"Lena, stop. Are you alright?" Kara caught her hands and held them firmly. She looked at Lena with concerned eyes and a wrinkled brow.

Lena tried to wave her off, an impossible feat with Kara’s strong grip on her hands. What resulted was an awkward waggle of her elbows, and an exasperated look from Kara. “I’m fine, but Kara… that blast could have killed you! It  _ should _ have killed you.” Emotion clogged her throat at the idea that Kara in all reality should have been laying motionless on the lab floor, instead of standing there gripping her fingers and looking at her with earnest blue eyes. 

The thought alone was enough to make Lena cringe, and her eyes shot back down to Kara’s chest again, as if to check that the skin there was still whole. “I can’t believe…”

"Lena, I'm okay. I didn't...I didn't even feel it," Kara said, her own voice wavering in the end before shaking off any thoughts that started to form. "You're probably exhausted. Lena, finish getting out of the suit," Kara helped to turn the woman around and face her back to her platform, " _ go _ ."

"I'm going to go cancel your appointments today. And find a shirt...and pants," Kara frowned as she looked at herself. She knew Lena was right. She should be dead. Anyone else would be dead.  _ Don't think about it _ , Kara reminded herself and placed a kiss on Lena's cheek.

"Everything is okay. I'll be back in a minute," the blonde assured and left the lab. She found some of Lena's clothes that fit her, thankfully. Just some sweatpants and an old oversized sweater. Kara stood in the kitchen, still perfectly intact, calling to cancel various meetings for the day. 

Lena stood motionless where Kara had left her for several long minutes. It wasn't until she heard Kara's voice cancelling appointments that she finally shook herself into movement. "Hope," she croaked.

"Yes, Miss Luthor?"

"Video functions in the lab for the last hour have been fully operational, correct?"

"Yes, Miss Luthor."

A fine shiver had started in Lena's fingers. Kara should be dead, her brain looped numbly. She shouldn't be able to clear Lena's day right now, she should be right there on the floor…

"Edit the last hour out, loop the video from before." It didn't matter if the editing was sloppy, she told herself. "Encrypt the removed section with level six, store it on the private server. And Hope?"

"Yes, Miss Luthor?"

"Get me out of this thing."

It felt like hours later that Lena was able to stumble tiredly out of her bedroom. She had managed to find a brief burst of annoyance in the shower that Kara would just clear her day, but it was quickly beaten down by the rush of emotion because Kara was still alive to do it. If she thought she had been tired before, she was practically dragging now.

Rounding the corner, Lena stopped at the entry to the kitchen, watching Kara's hands wave about animatedly as she spoke on the phone. Whoever it was she was talking to seemed to be giving her an earful, and at this time of day, Lena certainly hoped it was someone overseas.

"I don't care that the meeting has been scheduled for three weeks. I don't care if it's been scheduled for three months, Miss Luthor needs to reschedule," Kara sounded a little exasperated. The man on the other end had a thick Russian accent and was disinclined to accept that his 4:30pm meeting, their 9:30am, was cancelled.

Kara noticed Lena out of the corner of her eye and gave an apologetic smile and held up a hand signaling she just needed five more minutes, "Yes, I understand that… Yes, you know we will work with you, but this is not negotiable. It just happens Miss Luthor has an opening next Tuesday for you at 5:45MST."

Kara sighed and penned the 10:45am meeting into her planner, "Thank you. Your flexibility is appreciated. Goodbye." Kara sighed and hung up finally and out her cell face down on the counter and turned to Lena, "Sorry that took so long. He was being difficult. Lena, are you alright?" Her girlfriend was looking at her even more strangely than before.

___

" _ Menya ne volnuyet, chto vstrecha naznachena na tri nedeli. Menya ne volnuyet, chto eto bylo zaplanirovano na tri mesyatsa, Miss Luthor nuzhno perenesti _ ."

" _ Da, ya eto ponimayu. Da, vy znayete, chto my budem rabotat' s vami, no eto ne podlezhit obsuzhdeniyu. Tak poluchilos', chto v sleduyushchiy vtornik u Miss Luthor dlya vas vtornik v 5:45 MST." _

" _ Spasibo. My tsenim vashu gibkost'. Proshchay." _

"I didn't know you spoke Russian," Lena said with a frown. She had understood a handful of the words that Kara had been spitting out rapid fire. Lena had a good grasp of several languages, but her fluency, at least in Russian, was leagues behind Kara's.

Now that she had Kara in her line of sight again, the need to make sure she was okay was overpowering. She crossed the kitchen quickly, pausing just before she crossed into Kara's space. Bringing a hand up, one she was pleased to see was no longer shaking, she rested it on Kara's chest where the gauntlet of the suit had hit her.

"I...don't?" Kara said, both looking and sounding confused. Her brow scrunched and she covered the hand on her chest with one of her own while the other came up to cup Lena's cheek, "Did you hit your head? Do you have a concussion?"

The irritation that had taken a backseat in the shower flared again, and Lena frowned up at Kara. "No, I don't have a concussion," she snapped, "And you do speak Russian. Fluently, from what I heard."

Kara moved her head back a little, unaccustomed to having Lena's snappiness on her and not someone else, "I don't, Lena. I really don't. Why would I lie? I only know some ASL from college. It was on my resume."

Eyes narrowed, Lena tried to wrap her head around what Kara was saying. Under her palm, she could feel the strong beat of Kara's heart, and she let the rhythm ground her. Deliberately, she smoothed her expression, before she asked in French, "Did you bring coffee?"

" _ Bien sûr, je l'apporte toujours _ ," Is what Kara's mouth said, but her brain heard, "Of course, I always bring it." Kara nodded over to the counter where Lena's coffee sat, getting cold now, along with a wrapped gift box.

Lena took a long moment to gather herself, gently disentangling herself from Kara to warm up her coffee. She had the distinct impression she was going to need it. With a deep, shaking breath, she asked her next question in Italian. "Thank you, what else did you bring?"

Again, Kara answered her question, this time with a big smile as she went over to the box, "Oh, I brought you a present! I hope that you like it." Only, her mouth didn't move right to form the words and " _ Oh, ti ho portato un regalo! Spero vi piaccia _ ," came out instead.

The microwave dinged and Lena just stared at it. One more, she thought. Three points of data could lead anywhere. Four. Four would be better.

She gingerly took her coffee from the microwave, turning to face Kara with a convincing smile. In Mandarin, she asked, "What did you get me?"

"Well I'm not going to tell you, Lena. You have to open it," Kara answered with a silly smile on her face. She grabbed for the gift box and held it out for Lena, clearly nervous and hoping the other woman would like what was inside.

Her heart was pounding, the arc reactor humming in response. Lena was staring at Kara even as she set her coffee down and took the offered box. Four points of data didn't lie.

As she opened the box, carefully peeling the tape apart, she said thoughtfully, "You don't even know you're doing it, do you?"

"Doing what?" Kara asked absently, clearly more focused on Lena's reaction for whenever she got the gift out. Lena was acting strange but Kara was trying really hard to ignore it at the moment. She didn't particularly want to ask her about her excursion in the suit, but clearly something had happened that was still affecting her.

"Hope," Lena paused with her hand halfway in the box, fingers touching something cold and smooth. "How many individual languages have you heard in the kitchen this morning?" 

"Including English, you and Miss Kara have been conversing in five languages, Miss Luthor."

Kara didn't like this. This was extra... unusual and it made her feel uneasy. The blonde rubbed at the top of her chest over Lena's sweater anxiously. It felt tight. "Lena? I don't understand. We were talking in English. I don't know any other languages," but then why would Hope say they had been? Kara didn't think that Hope had the capacity to lie. Why would she? And why would Lena lie? But Kara wasn't lying. 

Lena's mouth was uncomfortably dry, her eyes never leaving Kara's face even as she addressed the AI again. "Hope, what languages specifically have you heard this morning."

Somehow, Hope's modulated voice managed to sound put upon. "This morning you have spoken English, French, Italian, and Mandarin. Miss Kara has spoken English, Russian, French, Italian, and Mandarin."

"Kara… I know you believe what you're telling me, but…"

Kara was quiet. She didn't know how to process any of this information. It was impossible. How could she speak languages she didn't know? It didn't make any sense. And it couldn't be Lena because she had no reason to make it up. The AI certainly wouldn't make it up...so it had to be true? She should also apparently be dead, which was another thing Kara didn't really want to think about. An image of a rolling wall of fire crossed her mind and it made Kara's head start to pound.

It showed on her brow which wrinkled and Kara closed her eyes. "That doesn't…" she squeezed her eyes shut. She distantly heard the sound of shattering glass. Some screaming. "That doesn't make any sense…" The lights in the kitchen dimmed and then flickered.

The lights. How had she never noticed the lights before? Lena's mind was working in overdrive as she carefully set the half open gift box down and cautiously reached out for Kara.

"Hey," she soothed, sliding her palm from Kara's tensed forearm up to her elbow. She moved slowly, giving Kara plenty of time to pull away if she wanted to. "It's okay, darling, come here…"

The conversation with Sam flashed through her mind.

_ Electrical signature. _

_ Something more reckless than you. _

_ When we get  _ her.

"Oh my God," she whispered, her fingers clenching on Kara's elbow.

Lena felt tense against her. She wanted to calm down but it was hard when the one holding onto her wasn't calm either. It just felt like her headache was getting worse. Nothing was making any sense. The tighter grip got her eyes to open again and it made her a little dizzy, "W-what?" What else could there possibly be now?

Forcing herself to relax, Lena tried to give a reassuring smile. "It's nothing, I'm sorry." She pulled Kara into her arms, rubbing her back like she had at Kara's birthday dinner the night before.

It felt like weeks ago, now. 

Maybe it was good that Kara had wiped her schedule for the day. It would give her time to access Lex's files and try to sort out exactly what was going on, and how Kara was wrapped up in it.

_____

The dark town car bounced away from the looming institution behind it, away from the countryside and toward the city. 

“Your sister has been making progress on the project,” Lillian said mildly, crossing one leg over the other. Across from her, Lex smiled a little wildly.

“She hasn’t been able to trace the hack yet, has she?”

“Of course not,” Lillian smiled indulgently, “She’s completely unaware. I doubt she even knows you’re coming home, dear.”

Lex laughed, the sound a little cruel, a little unhinged. “Let’s keep it that way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you thank you THANK YOU for all the love. We love you guys so much!
> 
> PLEASE come yell at us on tumblr:
> 
> bandwidthlimit
> 
> happypugstuff


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling generous, so here you go. Have a chapter early! Happy Thirsty Thursday!
> 
> This one is a RIDE my dudes. Prepare yourselves.

Lena’s eyes were burning. She had been staring at the same screen for almost an hour. Kara was asleep next to her, blowing soft puffs of air into Lena’s side as she rested. The blonde had succumbed to sleep shortly after Lena had ushered them into the large bed, telling her through yawns that she had been up most of the night worried that Lena had a terrible accident in Syria.

Lena had very pointedly not told Kara about the jets, or her conversation with Sam yet. 

True to Sam’s word, there were grainy aerial shots of a green and silver blur flying through the air over most news stations. Lena very grimly had navigated past the news tabs on her laptop, and delved seriously into the deep recesses of L-Corps servers. She dug past her years as CEO, and began to wade through the weapons contracts that Lex had accumulated.

The deeper she went, the more outrageous the projects got. She recognized a few of them from her time spent in Research and Development, but most of the blueprints were unfamiliar.

Until… she knew she’d seen one like this before. She’d seen this exact blueprint before, but the last time she had seen it, it was singed around the edges and damp in the middle from the ever present moisture in the godforsaken cave in Turkey.

She shivered even though she wasn’t cold.

The blueprints were covered in writing she didn’t recognize, and distantly, hilariously, she wondered if Kara could read it. 

The file she had open only got more outrageous as she looked at it. Lex’s record keeping was meticulous, it always had been. He had documents on experiments he had performed on some kind of cube, sketches of some sort of mallet that had a gravitational pull that judging by the numbers shouldn’t be possible. There were pages and pages about other worlds, other realms, a multiverse theory that had Lena shaking her head at the impossibility of.

She’d known Lex was ill, but she had never seen it so blatantly laid out in page after page of his own words.

She kept going, feeling absurdly like she was descending into Lex’s madness with him. 

_ The bridge was breaking. Soon it would succumb to the fire or the weight of the multitude who were desperately trying to cross. She could hear the cracks rupture through it like shattering glass. Many had already fallen, accepting their fate with dignity or fear. It didn't matter. It had come for them all. _

_ "Kara, are you listening? Not much time remains, my darling." _

_ A pull on her hand.  _

_ Kara turned and her eyes met that of a woman's who looked remarkably like her own. She recognized that face. She knew that face. _

_ "You must go my love, while the bridge remains open." _

_ "Not without you! Where is Pappa?!" _

_ A child's voice. It was her own. _

Kara's brows creased, face nuzzling into Lena's side. Her breath had steadily become more and more shallow.

_ She received no answer from the woman, her mother. The child's eyes sparked with more than just tears and the woman knelt down to her, placing both hands on her shoulders. The fire behind them grew. _

_ "You must go. I will be right behind you–" _

_ "Where is Pappa?! Where is father?!" _

_ "He is coming. He will be right behind you too." The words were a comfort, Kara found but something in her gut twisted. It was a lie. How did she know it was a lie? _

A low roll of thunder echoed outside, carrying for miles, warning of an approaching storm. Kara grunted in her sleep. She was sweating. The screen of Lena's laptop suffered a glitch.

The screen glitched again, and Lena closed the computer preemptively, casting a wary eye at the window. Gingerly, she slipped her fingers into Kara's hair, carding her fingers through soothingly.

"Kara," she murmured, rubbing her thumb carefully against the shell of the blonde's ear. "Wake up, darling. It's only a dream."

Blue eyes fluttered open and then closed again. Her breath was evening out and Kara opened her eyes again. She didn't move, just laying there with Lena's fingers in her hair. Kara felt like she was trying to hold onto something, but the image was slipping away. Another softer roll of thunder caught her attention and she shifted just enough to look up at Lena with sleepy eyes.

"You're still awake…" she mumbled. A hand reached out and grabbed for Lena's sweater and Kara clung to it.

"Just doing a little research," Lena brushed it off, continuing the soothing motion of her hand in Kara's hair. "Are you alright?"

"Bad dream…" Kara answered and scooted her body closer to Lena's. She was already starting to fall asleep again.

Kara started to snore softly, and Lena smiled down at her, inexplicably charmed. After a few more minutes of stroking her hand through Kara's hair, Lena reopened her computer and went back to work. 

Combing through Lex's files proved tedious. She was often forced to stop and break through an encryption, and the deeper she got, the more protected the files were. The more protected the files, the weirder the content.

It didn't occur to Lena to look at the timestamps until she was shut out of a folder for the sixth time. She snarled in frustration at it and moved to toss the laptop away from herself when she saw it. A stamp from only a week ago. For a moment, all she could do was stare at it, almost expecting the numbers to warp into something further in the past, like the current date was a figment of her over tired imagination.

It didn't change.

Lena set the laptop down gingerly.

She navigated back to a file she had recently opened about something Lex was calling a bifrost. It, too, carried a recent timestamp. 

She swung her legs jerkily out of the bed, abandoning the computer. She needed coffee to solve this problem. Maybe something stronger.

Sam figured she had waited long enough. Lena was surely back and had gotten some rest by now. It was time to have a serious discussion. She had done as much as she could for the news and had managed to get most of the video taken, but some always slipped through. Now all of New York and a whole lot of the rest of the world was wondering, who was the person in the iron suit. Sam had slipped a name to a news crew and it pleased her a little to see  **Who is the Iron-Maiden?** flash across the bottom of the tv screen.

The agent found herself in her office and finally alone, so she called Lena to check up on her...and of course to boast a little about naming her.

"You have an incoming call on your personal line, Miss Luthor."

Hope's pleasant voice made Lena jump, splashing hot coffee onto her hand. She hissed through gritted teeth, "Who is it, Hope?"

"It is the same government number that called you previously."

Sam. 

Lena supposed she should have known the agent would reach out to her sooner rather than later. Instead of accepting the call through Hope, Lena hunted down her cell phone, locating it in the lab, vibrating face down on the workbench.

Taking a fortifying breath, Lena summoned her best 'everything is fine' voice. "Miss me already, Sam?" 

" _ Every day of my lif _ e," Sam teased and shut her blinds then took a seat in her chair, " _ First off, have you seen the news? You're all over it." _

"I turned it off hours ago," Lena admitted, rubbing the heel of her unburned hand hard into one tired eye. "I saw the first few loops and caught the highlights. They didn't exactly get my best angle."

" _ You didn't exactly give it _ …" there was a pause and Lena would hear Sam laugh, " _ Second, I'm going to assume that you are safe? Are you hurt at all? _ "

"I'm fine, just exhausted." Lena sighed. She hadn't meant to admit it, but Sam was easy to talk to. 

" _ Ah, so you haven't slept yet. That seems right. I remember you being rather stubborn in that regard. Honestly... I'm glad you are okay. I was actually worried about you, you know _ ."

"Mm, I'm sure," Lena cracked a wry smile, pacing her way out of the lab and back to the kitchen to her abandoned coffee. "I'm fine, not a scratch on me. Can't say the same for the suit."

" _ Nothing you can't fix, I imagine, _ " Sam got quiet before she took a deep breath, " _ I know I said blowing that palace sky high messed up our plans. But, I feel guilty not telling you...Emir was there, two days ago. Our radar caught him. I knew if I told you then you'd probably hunt him down _ ."

For a moment, Lena felt like she understood what people meant when they said they saw red. She sucked in a sharp breath, pausing in the hallway to steady herself. Two days.

Two days too late. 

"I probably would have," Lena agreed, taking great care in making sure her tone was even and calm. Her teeth hurt from clenching them so hard. "Why are you telling me now?"

" _ Because you're my friend and you deserve to know _ ," Sam said seriously, " _ but I have to tell you, if you had just said yes to me when I offered, then you would have known two days ago when I did. You could be helping us Lena and not trying to do it all on your own. There's more to this than I can tell you, and Lena, I  _ really _ want to tell you _ ."

"I'm not sure I want to join your big brother boy band," Lena quipped, "Besides, you know I'm not exactly the orders following type."

Curiosity burned at her more than her spilled coffee had. "Tell me what you can."

Sam sighed heavily again and looked around her office, making sure the blinds were really shut. She leaned over in her chair and spoke a little quieter, " _ Honestly, I'm still the newbie. A lot of this is both above my pay grade and my clearance. I know they still want you, but I don't know why. I heard mention of some sort of special...team. They've got others lined up for it too, but that is all I have been able to overhear. I know we have some really old stuff that was confiscated from your brother, but they don't know much about it. I know they have a lot of his research. And I mean a lot of it Lena, and I'm not talking about weapons. I don't know how much you know about his... _ hobby _ , but they've got a lot. And I only know that because I heard some of the lab techs mention his name when I walk by the labs. And they know Emir is part of something big. Whoever his boss is, he's a bad guy, Lena. _ "

"I'm familiar with his collection," Lena hedged, thinking of her hours decoding Lex's files. "What else, Sam? You said something about electrical signatures earlier."

" _ Ah...yeah. So that was a one time favor,"  _ Sam informed. Lena couldn't see but she was clenching her teeth, making an awful face, " _ I honestly shouldn't even have said it to be honest. I was just so fed up with you _ ."

"Oh, is that all I have to do? Annoy it out of you?"

" _ Well I don't presume you're currently flying around restricted airspace are you? _ " Sam asked and Lena would hear a laugh. The agent pulled up her computer and opened some files, eyeing them as if she were undecided. A lot of it was redacted for her, due to her clearance level, but there was enough she could tell Lena. She was just fairly certain it was information Lena would not want to know.

Kara stirred lightly in the bed, hand groping around for a soft warm body that wasn't there. Blue eyes opened up to an empty side of the bed and she sighed. She shut her eyes again, just breathing, glad for some sleep finally, but if Lena wasn't in the bed it meant she still hadn't slept any...and she had most likely been up all night. Kara picked up hushed voices from the kitchen beyond but couldn't make out any of the words. Lena was probably still trying to work after Kara had told her to take a day.

"Do you want me to make whooshing sounds?" Lena raised an eyebrow that Sam couldn't see. "You said 'when we get  _ her _ ,'" she reminded, "So you must have an identity. Even your shady branch of the government that no one's ever heard of can't just kidnap an American citizen."

" _ Trust me, as a friend who suffered unspeakable things with you, that you do not want me to tell you that _ ," Sam said confidently.

"You have got to be kidding me." Lena huffed in disgust, "And you got into bed with these people? For what, a raise?" 

It was a step too far and she knew it. Immediately, Lena softened, "I'm sorry, Sam. I just have a lot on my mind today. That was uncalled for."

Sam was quiet on the other end for a while before she cleared her throat to at least let Lena know she was still there. " _ You know why I did... thank you for apologizing. You probably need some sleep. _ "

Kara rolled over, tired of just laying down in bed. She was still tired, but she was just about done sleeping without Lena in her own bed. She got out of the bed and stretched, lifting her hands up to the ceiling and yawned. It pulled the sweater up enough to reveal her belly button, and then fell back down when Kara stopped stretching.

"You might be right," Lena conceded, "I'm just worried about… I'm just worried, Sam."

She didn't want to admit what she had been swirling around in her mind all day. It did nothing to quell the urge to protect Kara, even from Sam.

The agent on the other end of the line leaned back in her chair, running her free hand through her hair. She wanted to help her friend, wanted to tell her things would work out and be okay. It was a difficult thing to do though, especially when Sam had more cards visible than Lena did. 

She leaned forward again and pulled up some more documents and looked through them and sighed, " _ That have anything to do with the power surge in your building at 6:37am, Lena _ ?"

Lena swallowed down a surge of panic, her pulse thundering in her ears. She took a deep breath, and then another.

_ Never let them see you sweat. _

Summoning every ounce of boardroom calm she could muster, she said, "If it did, what would you have to say about it?"

" _ I would ask if you calmed her down _ ," Sam said cautiously and glanced towards her door and windows again.

"She's been asleep most of the day," Lena pushed a hand through her hair, fisting it at the back of her head. "What am I supposed to do, Sam? I won't let anything happen to her."

_"I don't know Lena._ _You turned us down, made us look at other options. It just so happens one of those options is your assistant. She's..._ different _. I know you've noticed that already, surely. Kara's a ticking time bomb from what this data is saying. She needs control. She doesn't even know, does she?_ "

"No," Lena whispered, unsure if she was answering Sam's question or denying the existence of the problem at all. Her throat felt tight, and when she opened her mouth to speak, the words were hoarse. "Buy me some time, Sam. What do I need to do to get time?"

" _ You're not going to like it _ ," Sam sighed, " _ if you sign the contract we have for you, you'll get access to all our files, I promise. The Director will probably be a little more lenient, since you're watching her, especially if you're with us. We are still going to want Kara too, Lena. It doesn't give her immunity _ ."

"Send it over. I'll sign it first thing." Lena set her jaw, determined to keep her voice steady. 

She only needed time to figure everything out. Kara needed time so she could make up her own mind. She wouldn't let some faceless government official take that from her.

Sam was quiet for a few beats before she answered, " _ It's sent. Read it over Lena. It's not as bad as you think it is, I promise. You'll see when you read. _ " A few clicks and keystrokes came in over the line, " _ As soon as I get it back with your signature I'll send you everything we have on Kara. Just keep her calm. I don't think you can handle what happens if she really gets upset Lena _ ."

Her phone vibrated in her hand, alerting her of a new email. Lena let out a long sigh, "We'll have to revisit what I can handle later. Sam, you get them to back off, I mean it. Today. I'll get the contract back to you in the morning, but no one comes beating down my door tonight."

" _ No one comes tonight. I promise. Just be careful, Lena _ ," Sam said and finally let her friend be and hung up.

"You're not in bed," Kara called from the archway into the bedroom. She was leaning against it, one hand holding the other arm at the juncture of her elbow.

Lena jumped, whipping around to face the arch behind her. “Kara!” She pressed the hand holding her phone tight to her chest, trying to calm down her racing heart. “You scared me! I didn’t know you were up.”

"I missed you. I was coming to find you. You're coming to bed with me because I can tell even all the way over here that you haven't slept any yet," Kara said and then slowly made her way over to Lena in the kitchen. She kissed her forehead softly, "and if you say no, then we're going to talk about why Sam would be breaking down your door."

"Because she's a lunatic," Lena sighed, exhaustion creeping back up on her.

"And why was she asking about me?" Kara asked without much hesitation. She was still tired as well, but in no mood for teasing, "and what is it you are signing? You don't sign things that I haven't proofed for you."

"Can we talk about this later?" Lena asked, the smallest hint of a whine to the words. "You're right, I haven't slept and I don't think there's enough coffee to keep me awake right now."

"Good, leave all this," Kara said and gestured vaguely to the room and then took Lena's hand gently and led her back into the bedroom.

"If you get up before I do again, I'm tying you to the bed. And not in a fun way," Kara kissed her and then crawled back under the covers and sighed, "Now hurry up."

Lena slid under the covers and tucked herself right up against Kara. Her eyes were already drifting closed, but she managed a sleepy smile at Kara all the same. "Can we come back to the fun way later?"

_____

The contract was too long to read on her phone, so Lena opened it on her laptop while she sat propped up by a ridiculous amount of pillows. She had been awake for over an hour, but she stayed in bed next to Kara, unwilling to test the sincerity of Kara's threats from the night before. She was halfway through and had to admit Sam was right. It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, but there was no doubt that at the end of it, she would be signing away more of her autonomy than she was comfortable with.

Kara hadn't had any more nightmares. The blonde had slept as soundly as ever, tucked into Lena. She'd held her almost like a lifeline, tight and close. After a while, one hesitant hand reached out, feeling over the bed with Kara's eyes still closed, seeking something in particular. It found Lena's thigh pretty readily and seemed satisfied with the knowledge that the woman was still in bed like she'd promised. 

Blue eyes peaked open and found Lena sitting up on her laptop. The disappointed groan nearly shook the bed. Kara didn't know what time it was, but it was definitely too early to already be up. "Whatchu readin'?" Kara asked, words sleep slurred. The hand that had found her thigh fisted a hold onto Lena's sweats.

"Something from Sam," Lena reached down and covered Kara's hand with her own, eyes barely flicking away from the screen. She stroked her fingers over the smooth skin, her other hand scrolling the contract through its next page. 

"The thing you're supposed to sign?" Kara asked and reworked her fingers so that they were holding hands. There seemed to be a lot to talk about and still more even to process and Kara didn't know if she wanted to delve into it headlong or ignore it.

"Yes," Lena scrolled through another page, but she wasn't really seeing it. She turned her attention to the woman next to her. In the end, it wouldn't matter what the contract said. She would sign it for Kara, even if all it bought her was time. "We should probably discuss it before we go to the office."

Kara sighed, still laying there for a few more seconds before she accepted it and pushed herself to sit up next to Lena. "Alright, I'm ready. Tell me what's going on."

Lena shut the laptop with her free hand, buying a moment to organize her thoughts. “When I was in Syria yesterday,” she started slowly, piecing together the easiest way to tell the story, “Sam called me around the same time I was hiding under an Air Force jet.” 

She gave Kara’s hand a quick squeeze, “I may have intentionally annoyed her.” Just maybe. “But, she said a few things that I couldn’t ignore anymore. The branch of the government that she works for has wanted to bring me on as some sort of… contractor, I suppose, since I got back. That’s why I had you bar them from the office. But after the photos of the suit all over the news yesterday, and what Sam told me…”

Lena pulled at her lower lip with her teeth, uncertain. “I’m going to sign the contract, because signing it will get me the time that I need to help figure out what is happening to you.”

Kara had been right. It was a lot to process and she definitely wanted to ignore it now. The blonde ran a hand through her hair, collecting it and pulling it back and sighed. She might as well get it over with, "What did Sam tell you?"

“That I wasn’t their top priority, because they were tracking some unique electrical frequencies that have been popping up around the city. One of them happened here, at about 6:30 yesterday morning.” Lena rested both hands on top of her closed laptop carefully, keeping her eyes on the long lines of her fingers against the gray plastic.

That's when she and Lena had argued about languages and she had gotten her headache. It was her. The top priority was her.

"Oh…" Kara wasn't sure what to say. If it had been Alex, she would just say 'adrenaline' and then that would be the end of it but she and Lena did not have that rule. "You have to sign it because of me. You shouldn't–I mean, that's not fair."

“Kara, I don’t  _ have _ to do anything. I am  _ going _ to sign it to get us some time to figure it out. I spent a lot of yesterday looking at Lex’s old files,” Lena’s throat tightened around her brother's name. Kara knew, of course, what Lex had tried to do, what sort of man he was. The whole world knew. But Lex was a subject they had never discussed, and somehow the idea of talking about her brother was more nerve wracking than signing a binding contract with a shadow government. “Sam said something about the electrical signature matching something that had been confiscated from Lex. I think there’s something there that can help.”

Lena pushed the computer off her lap, restless. She needed to get up and move, maybe make breakfast for the two of them before they left for L-Corp. 

"It's because the lights get weird and things blow up and I don't...die...when I'm supposed to. And because I accidentally crush five staplers when I don't focus. And because I speak languages I don't know," Kara's voice was steadily rising a little in volume. Put all together and it  _ did _ sound ridiculous. Coupled with terrifying nightmares that Kara was starting to get the creeping feeling that they weren't just nightmares and the fact she couldn't remember anything before the age of eight.

Sam’s warning from the night before crossed Lena’s mind as she watched Kara get more upset. Lena could feel the fine hairs on the back of her neck start to stand, like the room was starting to fill with static electricity. “Kara,” Lena said her name softly, trying not to feel like she was trying to calm a wounded animal. “I, for one, am very happy you didn’t die. I do think that there are a lot of variables on the table, and we need to sort them out. First, though, we need breakfast.”

The mention of breakfast did seem to work because Kara's stomach growled right after. She hadn't really eaten the day before, only slept off her terrible night worrying about Lena. "Breakfast sounds good. Can you make those sweet crepes again? They were  _ so _ good!"

Lena smiled indulgently, "Of course, darling. Come on, you're helping."

"Helping? I'm not sure if you want me helping. Alex doesn't usually eat my cooking, and for good reason," Kara said as she followed Lena into the kitchen.

“Helping under direct supervision,” Lena corrected, removing the ingredients they would need from the refrigerator. She set the rest of the strawberries next to the half opened gift box from the day before, “You can handle mixing, right?”

Kara distinctly remembered breaking a whisk in some cake batter Eliza was helping her make for Alex's birthday.

"Yeah, sure," Kara nodded, "I think I can manage that."

“Great,” Lena produced a bowl and some flour, deftly cracking eggs into the bowl and adding in the rest of the ingredients. “Mix it until it’s smooth, we don’t want any lumps.” She turned back to the strawberries, her hand pausing mid air as she focused on the small box in front of the microwave. “Kara?”

"Yeah?" Kara turned around, bowl in one arm and hand stirring with a whisk. She caught sight of the box and Lena looking at it. She forgot they hadn't ever gotten to open it up. The whole language debacle occurred. Kara stirred distinctly slower.

Picking it up gingerly, Lena decided the box felt distinctively heavier now. “Could I…?”

"Of course, Lee. I got it for you," Kara said and kept mixing.

Unreasonably nervous, Lena reached her hand back into the box, her fingers touching the smooth surface she remembered from before. It felt important, now, after their argument earlier. Carefully, she pulled it out of the box, her eyes softening as she took it in.

Kara had taken the Generation 1 arc reactor and had it enclosed in a glass box, elevated on a wooden base. Around the base, there was an inscription, written in all caps.  _ Proof that Lena Luthor has a heart.  _ Lena let out a soft laugh, unable to stop the prickling tears that rose to her eyes. “Kara.”

"Oh geeze," Kara quickly put the bowl and the whisk down and moved closer to Lena. She placed her hands over Lena's on the box so she wouldn't drop it, holding it between them lightly. "Is it alright? Do you like it?"

“I love it,” she whispered, not quite trusting herself to stop there. 

Kara let out a puff of air and seemed to relax, "Oh good. I was worried you would think that it was silly! I'm glad you like it. It just seemed like such a shame to throw it away."

Lena set the box down carefully next to her, at first trying to set it on the strawberry carton before she made it to the counter. “It’s very thoughtful, Kara,” she gave a small smile, reaching both hands up to thread them through Kara’s wild morning curls. “Thank you.”

"You're welcome," Kara beamed and leaned down just enough to give Lena a kiss before she pulled away, "Alright, how does my batter look?"

“Lumpy.”

_____

Kara had been partially distracted all day, although she thought she had been hiding it particularly well. Well enough to not have any lights flicker, bulb or computer screens burst, or crush any more office supplies. Lena was booked solid all day playing catch up and so was she, but the blonde at least had time for lunch. She had ordered some for Lena but could see through the glass doors that the woman hadn't even touched it yet.

She felt extremely guilty for being the reason Lena was even having to consider this contract with an agency she didn't fully trust. Kara wished she could just remember... something _ , anything _ about where she had come from. Why she was here. Anything that could help and keep Lena from having to lay down on her own sword for her. It was all going to bubble over. Not to mention the Iron-Maiden was the new big thing everyone was talking about it. She had heard six people in the office downstairs mention it already when she had gone to make copies.

Kara really needed to talk to Alex. Her ' _ quirks _ ' were something that they never spoke about and it had gotten them this far but now too many things were different. Her sister needed to know. She sat down at her desk, anxious, finger tapping on the top as she pulled out her cellphone. She typed out a quick text to Alex. It was her sister's off day this week so hopefully she would be free.

_ Hey Alex, are you free for lunch? _

The reply was almost instantaneous.  _ Definitely. Haven't seen you in DAYS! _

_ Pims in 15? _

_ Be there in 10. _

Kara smiled, relieved Alex was willing to meet her. She had been a little worried she would be angry since she had spent most of the weekend with Lena. She packed up her work area a little to prepare to leave and slipped into Lena's office.

"Miss Luthor?" She addressed her more formally since the door was still propped open, "I'm going to lunch but I'll be back. Do you need anything?"

Lena looked up at the door, body still bowed over the schematic on her desk. Her eyes darted to the unopened food and back to Kara, a flicker of guilt crossed her face before her expression smoothed again. "No, thank you, Kara."

"Okay, I'll be back soon, I promise," Kara said and smiled. She let Lena's door shut and pulled out her phone again as she walked to the elevator. She texted Lena a reminder to eat her lunch and then three kiss emojis.

The walk to Pims didn't take as long as Kara thought, probably because she was anxious to get there and had walked a little faster than normal. Alex had apparently done the same because Kara spotted her sister already in line. *Alex!"

"Kara!" Alex turned with a wide grin, arms open to invite Kara into a hug. She wasn't moving from her spot in line, Pims was packed at lunch hour and she was not going to be the reason they didn't get a table.

Kara rushed up and hugged her, perhaps even a little longer than the situation warranted. When someone behind them complained about Kara jumping the line, she didn't even have to see the look Alex gave them. Their reaction was proof enough. The complaining stopped and Kara pulled away, "Hey, I'm glad you could come. I'm sorry I haven't been home much. We've been busy."

"Yuck, Kar." Alex deadpanned, leaving one arm slung over Kara's shoulders.

"Ugh, Alex, not like that," Kara started then thought better of it, "Okay maybe a little like that. Mostly like that, but that's not what I meant. We need to talk-" Kara cut herself off as they made it to the front of the line. She gave her usual order and let Alex give hers and then they took their number over to a table, closer to the back, with Kara's direction.

Once they had sat down the blonde sighed, "Like...talk talk."

Alex paused in her shuffling of the table number, both brows raised at her sister. "Talk talk about what? Are you okay?"

"I don't know…" Kara's brows furrowed as she chewed on her bottom lip. She didn't know where to start or even how to start. "I mean yes? I think so. No?" Kara groaned and looked around the restaurant. "Whenever... whenever I used to have nightmares when we were little did I ever uhm...say anything? Tell you anything? Did anything happen?"

"I mean, electricity has always been weird around you. I just figured you were one of those people who always fried outlets, like Gramma. She was always shorting out toasters." Alex shrugged one shoulder, eyes narrowing as she looked at her sister. "You used to shock me everytime you handed me something, though. Like, a quick little zap. It got better as you got older. Hasn't happened in years."

So she had been like this forever. This wasn't new. Kara didn't know if she was relieved or worried still. "And the nightmares, Alex, did I eve–" Kara's jaw snapped shut as a waiter brought their food and drinks over and sat it before them. Kara didn't immediately tear into her potstickers. She didn't even know if she was really hungry.

"Did I ever talk to you about them, Alex? Did I used to remember them?"

"You used to cry, Kara. You were a scared little kid." Alex separated her chopsticks, rubbing them together to smooth the splinters. She glanced at Kara's potstickers, then at her sister's face, a little surprised the dumplings hadn't disappeared already. 

She set her chopsticks down. Kara looked shaken, her eyes a little wild. Alex couldn't remember the last time Kara hadn't  _ adrenaline' _ d out of a conversation about her dreams, or the weird electrical surges that seemed to happen around her. Part of her wanted to grill her sister to get her to tell her what this was about, but the detective part of her told her to let it play out.

"Do you remember the first time Dad took us camping?"

"Barely... honestly. A lot of when we were younger is just a big blur," Kara sighed and finally picked up her chopsticks and separated them. The top broke off, making them uneven and she sighed and picked up a fork instead. "I remember it was cold and you wouldn't share the spare blanket."

Alex waved away the complaint dismissively, “Even then you were like a tiny furnace. You were fine.” She reached across the table, swapping her evenly broken chopsticks for Kara’s unbalanced disasters. “The first night we were there it was raining. You were laying on your back next to the fire, staring up at the sky like you were waiting for something to happen. Dad told you to move, he needed to put lighter fluid on the wood, but you didn’t listen. He thought you’d moved so he sprayed the heck out of it, and the fire obviously roared up… you hid in the tent for the rest of the trip. You wouldn’t come out if the fire was going, you’d just stare at it and cry.”

“You had nightmares the whole weekend.” Alex stabbed a little too viciously at her food, sending a stray noodle off her plate. “That was the last time I remember you talking in your sleep. You kept going on and on about some sort of rainbow bridge. I just thought you were way too into  _ All Dogs go to Heaven _ .”

Kara was quiet, and for the first time since the blonde had come into her life, Alex was suddenly filled with the need to fill the silence. “Hey, do you remember that time you convinced me to go out on the roof with you cause you thought you could fly?”

She'd been waiting for something.  _ Rainbow bridge _ . She'd been waiting for the bridge. Kara picked up a potsticker and popped it into her mouth so Alex would hopefully stop looking at her like she was solving a puzzle.

Alex's question came out a little like an accusation and Kara's instant response was to defend herself. She  _ could _ fly. Only that was silly, then why did it feel true? "You said I couldn't. I obviously had to prove you wrong."

“Yeah, obviously.” Alex rolled her eyes, unable to stop a grin at the memory of nine year old Kara, blonde hair wild in the wind on the roof, “You stole Dad’s hammer from the garage, cause that was gonna help, and pulled me off the second story! So of course, we end up dropping straight into Mom’s rose bushes - which she still gets mad at me about, by the way! - and you drop the hammer right between your big dummy eyes and I end up with two broken ribs and a concussion.”

Alex frowned, chopsticks loaded with noodles but frozen midair, “I still don’t know how you didn’t get hurt. You didn’t even bruise.”

"Yeah...that seems right," Kara lowered her chopsticks. Her brow was wrinkled in her thinking face, eyes angled down to look at the table, but she couldn't see the table.

_ "You have to take this with you. Do not lose it." _

_ "What if I do?" _

_ "Then it will find you when you need it _ ."

"About that, Alex...I need to tell you something. You have to promise–you have to  _ swear _ to me that you will not tell anyone else or talk about it ever again, okay?" Kara looked at her sister seriously. Perhaps as serious as she had ever been.

“Kara, what is all this about?” Alex abandoned her chopsticks on the side of her plate, holding her hands up in surrender when Kara widened her eyes at her. “Okay, okay. I swear.”

Kara leaned in, looking expectantly at Alex, waiting for her to lean in as well. She didn't miss Alex rolling her eyes before she did. Kara took a deep breath and then just spat it out in as hushed of a whisper as she could manage, "Lena is the Iron-Maiden and I caught her taking the suit off Tuesday morning and her gauntlet spun out or something and it hit me and it exploded but I didn't even feel it–it didn't even  _ knock me down _ and she said I should be dead but I'm obviously not because I'm sitting right here in front of you and I think I make electricity weird because I am an alien."

For a long moment, Alex didn’t say anything. She leaned carefully back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest while she tried to process everything Kara had just said. More than once, she opened her mouth to speak only to snap it shut again. Finally, she leaned forward again, a grin on her face.

“That’s a good one, Kar. Almost as good as the time you told me you could control lightning.”

_ Oh god _ . "Here's the thing. Alex. The thing is... I'm pretty sure I can," Kara said, a weird awkward smile on her face. "I was watching the sky that night because I was waiting for the bridge. The rainbow bridge or whatever it is. I think it dropped me here, Alex. And my nightmares are... actually... memories. And wherever I am from is," Kara stopped and swallowed hard, mouth suddenly too dry for words. Where she was from was  _ gone _ .

“Kara, that’s crazy.” Alex was shaking her head in disbelief. 

Except… it sort of explained a lot. The way Kara could break things that she shouldn’t even be able to lift. The way electricity always seemed to fail with Kara around. The way Kara could eat the entire contents of the restaurant and still have room for more.

She rubbed both hands hard over her face, “Okay,” she said from behind her palms, voice muffled. “Okay,” she repeated, dropping her hands in her lap. “What… what do we do with that, now that we know?” 

Kara had expected considerably more yelling and the whole cornucopia of curses. This was probably scarier. "Uhm...I don't know. I just thought you should know. Deserved to know. I sort of just all pieced it together myself. And apparently there are some people who want me and Lena has to sign something she doesn't want to to keep them at bay. I don't really know what's going on."

“Okay. Let me get this straight, because I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Your boss - your  _ girlfriend _ , is the Iron-Maiden, the one that everyone has been talking about nonstop for days. The one in the news. The one who blew a bunch of shit up in Syria.”

The one who Alex was going to freak out on in a minute here. So much for keeping Kara safe!

“And you think you’re an alien who can control lightning.” The more she talked about it the more ridiculous it sounded. 

"Yes, Alex. I'm being serious," Kara insisted. She didn't know how to prove it, her part at least. She'd never thought about it that hard or needed to. The Iron-Maiden would be easier. She could just show Alex the suit. "Do you believe me?"

“I…” Alex reached into her pocket for her phone, suddenly determined to at least shoot off an angry text to the billionaire her sister was dating. “Yeah,” she said finally, “Yeah, I do.”

"Okay...thank you," Kara gave as a reassuring smile as she could and finally started to eat. "God these are good," the blonde said and shoved two more potstickers into her mouth.

_____

  
  


Lena's phone was vibrating somewhere on her desk, but it was so covered in blueprints she couldn't find it. 

To be fair, she wasn't exactly looking for it, either. She assumed it was Sam, probably hounding her about where the contract was. A question she wasn't particularly ready to answer just yet.

The contract in question sat on the corner of her desk, signed and ready to be sent out. Lena had half a mind to throw it in the shred bin and forget all about it. Every time she reached out to do just that, her mind flashed to Kara's petrified face, and she retracted her hand.

Her phone buzzed again, and Lena sighed, finally pushing papers around to find it before it drove her nuts.

_ 1 Message: Alex Danvers _

Lena raised a brow at it before selecting the message, completely unprepared for the barrage of swearing that appeared on her screen in text form. With controlled movements, she set her phone face down again on the desk. 

She eyed the contract warily. She ought to send it while Kara was out of the office, or it was likely Kara would rip it apart to keep it from becoming official. Stretching as she stood, Lena picked up the heavy document and marched out of her office to Kara’s desk, straight for the fax machine she hadn’t used since her last college internship. With determination, she punched in the number Sam had given her and fed the papers one by one into the machine. 

_____

Sam received the contract pages one by one, keeping an eye out for all the places Lena should have initialled until finally the last page came through and there was her signature, clean and flourished as she expected. The agent collected all the pages, giving them a little bang on the desk to level them out and she slipped the completed contract into a folder marked Iron-Maiden and put it in her outbox to be delivered to the Director. Sam thought she would feel more at ease, but she didn't. Lena was her friend and this had probably taken a considerable amount of self control to submit instead of tearing it up. She had half expected Lena to text her any minute and tell her to go screw herself.

Sam had her cellphone out and was calling Lena before she even thought it through.

"I take it you got the contract," Lena said by way of greeting, wedging her phone between her cheek and her shoulder as she finally got around to opening the lunch Kara had left for her over an hour before.

" _ I did… _ " Sam said and turned in her chair to face the windows outside instead of her computer, " _ Didn't see addendums. I was wondering if you had read it at all or if you just had Kara sign it for you _ ."

Lena laughed humorlessly, "I didn't let her read it."

" _ Ah _ ," Sam nodded to herself, only a little surprised, " _ well, speaking of, I believe I owe you some files _ ." Sam turned again in her chair, but only enough to push send on an email she had had in her drafts since sending Lena the contract.

" _ You should have an email here soon. That's everything I have access to, including all the energy readings, their locations, and our schematics for the device she matches. I've bought you some time, Lena, but I don't know how much. If anything happens the Director is going to want us to step in. She could be dangerous, Lena _ ."

"She's not dangerous, Sam." Lena traced her fingers over the little sticky note Kara had left with her food. There were no words, just a hastily drawn heart. She followed the lines of it with her finger. "She's scared."

Her computer and phone dinged at the same time, both lighting up with the arrival of Sam's email. The CEO sighed, opening her food with little interest. "What happens now? Should I expect to be whisked away to some black ops location?"

" _ Of course not, Lena. Your life remains the same. We only need Iron-Maiden, and we will let you know when we do. But that also means you can't just go fly and blow up any weapons caches without permission. I'll send you everything on Emir but you cannot make a move on him until we tell you to, or the whole deal is forfeit _ ," Sam warned.

Lena clicked through to the email, only half listening to Sam's warning. The idea of being told when and how she could do things was already irritating, and she tried to push it aside. She was doing this for Kara, she reminded herself.

The file Sam sent her was extensive, and Lena felt her eyes widen at the sheer number of pages it opened to. She scrolled through several before Sam cleared her throat, and she realized she had been silent for too long. "Sure, Sam. I'll make sure I ask for the hall pass while I'm at it."

" _ Come on, Lena. What else would you use the suit for anyway? _ " Sam sighed. The question was rhetorical though and Sam didn't expect an answer, " _ It's not going to be as bad as you think it is. We aren't bad people, Lena _ ."

"I know you're not a bad person, Sam. I trust  _ you _ ." Lena said pointedly, leaning in a little closer to her monitor as she scrolled into a graph of electrical surges. Her eyes widened in surprise, "Am I seeing this graph right? Page fourteen."

" _ Ah, you found it _ ," Sam let out a bark of a laugh and opened the image up on her laptop so she could look at what Lena was seeing for the first time, " _ Uh, yeah. Your girlfriend could power all of Manhattan for a week if she even so much as sneezes too hard. Whatever this thing is that we have in the lab, page seventeen, could probably double, even triple that if the projections are accurate. That's a lot of power Lena. I know the techies would love to get a look at your reactor to compare. _ "

"They'll have to pry it out of me," Lena said defensively, rolling down to page seventeen. For a moment, she felt like her heart stopped. The arc reactor hummed in warning. "I've seen this before."

" _ If you've seen your brother's files, then that makes sense. Thing looks like a hammer. It's taking half the electric grid just to keep it in the antigrav chamber so we can move it around, otherwise they said it's unmovable. Your brother's notes says it came from somewhere else and I'm guessing wherever that somewhere else is is where Kara came from too _ ."

Kara knocked on Lena's office door and poked her head in. She gave a faint smile, but she looked tired, "I'm back," she mouthed when she saw Lena on the phone and then went back to her desk.

Lena glanced up at Kara, brows furrowed in concentration. "Not just in Lex's files. Emir had this same blueprint in the cave, Sam."

" _ I don't remember that. Are you sure you saw it and you weren't just dehydrated? _ " Sam asked. That was more than a little concerning. As far as Sam could make out that seemed to make a pretty good connection. They did know Emir had a very wealthy investor down his own back. " _ Lena, I'm going to have to call you back, I'm sorry. I'll check in again later _ ."  _ Click _ .

Slumping back into her chair in a move that she knew would leave wrinkles in her shirt, Lena glanced out the glass doors of her office at Kara. She watched for a moment as Kara fiddled with her glasses and briefly wondered if the blonde even needed them. Kara reached out to pick up the ringing office phone, fingers careful on the receiver.

Did she have to practice how gently to hold things, or did she assume everyone had to move through the world as gingerly as she did?

Kara nodded to the demands on the other end of the phone then seemed to realize that they couldn't see her as she started typing something into the computer, leaving the phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder. She answered with some generic affirmative and glanced into Lena's office. Kara accidentally staggered a little on her words. Lena was staring at her. She smiled and then had to look at her screen again, apologizing for missing whatever the other person had said.

Lena shook herself out of her daydreaming, attention going back to the pages and pages of data Sam had sent her. Quite a lot of it she knew she had duplicates of, since it seemed to be information they had taken straight from Lex. How much more did he have buried in files they hadn't discovered? 

The recent timestamps on her laptop at home suggested more than she was entirely comfortable with.

It was a problem for another day. The afternoon was slipping by, and she had a board meeting to prepare for.

_____

Kara sighed happily, glad to be finally out of the office and home. Well, it was Lena's penthouse again but the woman had done just about everything she could to make Kara feel welcome and it more than felt like home now. She didn't say so for fear of being embarrassed, but Kara was fairly certain Lena could tell how comfortable she was in the lavish rooms now than before.

She hung her bag on a barstool as usual and turned around just to watch Lena begin her winding down routine. Off came the heels. Out came a wine glass, in went some rosé and then like clockwork, to the bedroom. Kara knew Lena would emerge in some comfortable pants and an old worn sweater. It seemed like a hair down evening to Kara, since Lena had had it up in a tight bun all day. Kara liked hair down evenings the best. It meant she could play with it while they watched TV or laid on the bed.

She  _ did _ need to tell Lena that she told Alex about Iron-Maiden...and maybe also talk about the fact that she was now pretty sure she was an alien, but Lena looked particularly tired today. Kara didn't want to ruin the evening. Blue eyes watched her fondly and listened for the sounds of changing in the bedroom waiting patiently, almost reverently, for Lena to come back out.

When Lena finally emerged, it was in a soft cream sweater and leggings, her fingers combing the last stubborn knots from her hair. She had finally removed her contacts, and she squinted slightly at Kara as she entered the kitchen. A warm smile settled across her features, and she detoured from the island to Kara.

Now that they were alone, she could finally give in to the desire to kiss Kara that she had been forced to ignore all day. Lena all but melted into it, only pulling back when breathing became a necessity. "I don't know how I could possibly miss you when we've spent the last ten hours in the same building, but I missed you today."

"I missed you too. You should get solid doors so I can kiss you any time," Kara grinned and wrapped her arms around Lena's hips and pulled her in, "Then maybe you won't miss me as much. If you miss me you can just say 'Miss Danvers, please come to my office' and then I would and then I could give you all the kisses you want." It was a silly and childish thing to ask for but Kara grinned into it big and bright. She wouldn't put it past Lena to actually do it either.

"How was everything today? You look particularly tired."

Lena hummed in response, tucking her head into the warmth of Kara's neck. Her arms circled the blondes shoulders, and her eyes closed in contentment. "The board meeting was grueling. I think I have them swayed for the time being, but there's a strong chance I'll have a fight on my hands soon."

It felt very far away, at the moment. There was blood in the water, as far as the board was concerned. They thought she had gone soft, didn't have the backbone to run the billion dollar enterprise she'd devoted her life to. It wasn't the first attempt to oust her that she'd dealt with, and it wouldn't be the last.

"They better look out then," Kara teased. She just let them rest there a while, just breathing. It felt nice to stop and just exist for once but the peace was soon broken by the loud gurgle of a stomach. Kara blushed and pulled away, awkward grin on her face, "Oops... You'll have to feed me soon I think."

The way that grin made her heart flutter made Lena think maybe the board was right, and she had gone soft. Lena smiled, standing up on her toes to give Kara another quick kiss. "I don't have it in me to cook tonight," she admitted apologetically, "but we can order whatever you're in the mood for."

"Well...Alex and I had Pims for lunch, so  _ not _ Chinese, although actually, I could eat it if that's what you wanted. I do like Chinese a lot. But otherwise anything is good. You know me," Kara said, "It's about time you start keeping takeout menus in a readily accessible drawer. Alex and I have  _ two _ drawers full," Kara beamed like she was extra proud of that fact.

"Two drawers? How can I hope to compete?" Lena teased as she stepped out of Kara's arms to fetch her wine glass. She took a long sip, tipping her head as she looked at Kara. 

Kara soaked up the idle attention like a sponge. She felt beyond special when Lena looked at her like that. It reminded her that she had caught Lena staring earlier.

"You were watching me earlier," she accused lightly with a little grin.

Lena smiled slowly, deliberately dragging her eyes down Kara's form. "I suppose I might have been." She brought her gaze back up to meet Kara's, eyebrows raised in light hearted challenge. "Can you blame me?"

"I dunno, should I?" Kara gave Lena her own once over and was about to say something snarky before her stomach growled again. Her neck began to grow red and she groaned, "Okay, I'm sorry. Can we get pizza?"

Lena's smile widened into an outright grin, the kind her mother would have corrected immediately when she was a child. "Of course, darling. Why don't you change into something more comfortable and I'll order?"

"Okay!" Kara hopped off the barstool and gave Lena a lingering kiss and then headed into the bedroom. She had a few clothes here but not many. The blonde changed pretty quickly and came back out in some athletic shorts and a hoodie that smelled like Lena because the woman had been borrowing it.

"Are you going to waste away in twenty minutes, or can you make it?" Lena asked from the couch, leaning her head back against the cushion to see Kara as she approached.

"I dunno…" Kara stopped and looked down as she lifted up her hoodie some. It exposed everything from above the hem of the shorts and below her chest, including the abs Lena liked to rub her hands over so much, "Yeah. Yeah I think I'm good."

Green eyes dropped and didn't move. Lena's fingers tightened on her phone. "Yep. You're great," she said breathlessly, ignoring the heat she could feel in her cheeks.

Kara's grin widened considerably, grinning ear to ear like a cheshire cat, "Want to... find out how great?" She held her chin higher and slowly started to lower the hoodie like a threat.

There was no helping the soft whine of protest that escaped her, and Lena turned on the couch to better face Kara. "Get over here and show me how amazing you are."

A triumphant little laugh escaped the blonde and she quickly crossed the couple feet to the couch. She leaned over the back and kissed Lena hard. Teeth scraped her bottom lip and tugged before Kara pulled her face just out of reach, "Take your leggings off."

Without hesitation, Lena was pushing the waistband down past her knees. She had to perform an awkward little wiggle to get them all the way off, but she kicked them to the floor seconds later. The cool air on her thighs did nothing to soothe the heat growing between them.

Kara came around to the front of the couch, pushing up her sleeves as she went, and dropped to her knees on the carpet in front of Lena. One hand reached back and grabbed the coffee table and pushed, inadvertently sliding it so hard it tipped over. She didn't even look.

Splayed hands smoothed up the inside of Lena's thighs and pushed gently, getting her to widen them just for a second before Kara's hands reached her underwear. The blonde waited for Lena to close her legs again before she yanked them off eagerly. Kara grabbed Lena's hips and tugged her closer to the edge of the couch and kissed the inside of her thighs, leaving little red marks in her wake. Blue eyes darted up to lock with green ones. Kara grinned again, too big, "Lay back for me."

Lena let out a gasp at the feeling of Kara's hands on the insides of her thighs, and she let her legs fall wide open as she lay back on the couch. It was almost too much to watch Kara kiss her way up, kneeling between her legs. She was all blonde hair and blue eyes that glinted deviously at her. She bit her lip in an effort to keep any more potentially embarrassing noises muffled, but a particularly close nip to her hip made her jerk and let out a low groan of Kara's name.

Kara was no longer nervous. This was no longer new and she no longer worried about disappointing Lena. Although Kara did fully anticipate to never get used to this–being able to have Lena like this, finally. Wet sloppy kisses dotted the inside of Lena's thighs, left by Kara's grinning mouth. She hooked her arms underneath her legs and then settled in. 

She opened her mouth to say something, on the cusp of words. Perhaps a teasing quip. Maybe something sincere, but the words didn't make it into the open air between them. Instead, her tongue did, and it flattened against Lena's core and dragged through slick folds. A reverent moan rumbled up from Kara's chest so she did it again and again. And then she began in earnest, burying nearly all of her face into Lena's cunt, eating her out like her favorite dessert.

Lena's legs snapped closed around Kara's ears, her back arching up off the couch. She let out a ragged moan when Kara freed one arm to drop it heavily across her hips to hold them down. She gave an experimental press against it, heart racing as she realized she couldn't budge.

"God, Kara!" Lena squeezed her eyes shut, unable to focus on the view of Kara's face pressed between her legs. She could feel Kara's tongue skirting just around her clit before dancing away. Everytime she tried to shift to guide Kara where she desperately wanted her, Kara made sure to avoid it even longer. "Kara,  _ please _ ."

Kara ignored the begging, despite desperately wanting to give in and give Lena what she wanted. If she held off, if she denied her just a little longer, Kara knew that Lena would feel better for it in the end. The thumb of Kara's hand holding her down rubbed soft circles on Lena's skin, grounding her, telling Lena that Kara wasn't going anywhere.

A firm tongue teased over Lena's clit again and Kara distantly heard the warning buzzer that meant the pizza had made it past security and was heading to the elevator. The arm holding under Lena's thigh pulled back but was not missing her touch long. Two solid fingers slid into Lena's cunt and started to pump. Kara curled them every few thrusts and focused her tongue on Lena's clit. She felt warm flesh start to squeeze around her fingers and Kara pulled her face back, "Okay baby, I need you to cum for me." She hit Lena with a radiant grin and dove back down. She slipped a third finger inside before Lena needed to ask and fucked her just a little harder.

It only took a few more thrusts before Lena's back was bowing, her hips grinding desperately against Kara's face. Distantly, she could hear herself cry out Kara's name, but it was lost in the delicious drag of Kara's fingers against her walls. Lena was breathing raggedly, pulling in sharp gasps as she started to wind down.

Kara's fingers slipping out of her was like torture. Lena made a noise of protest, flinging one arm over her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy and loose, the stress of the day no longer holding her wound tight. Suddenly, the warm weight of Kara between her legs was gone, and Lena slipped limply down the couch, obscured by cushions.

Kara was grinning ear to ear. She dragged her forearm across her mouth to clean up a little and wiped her hand off on her hoodie. She went into her bag to get some tip money and then the bell rang. The blonde looked over her shoulder and Lena couldn't be seen from the door so she opened it up.

"Thanks for the pizza!" She shoved the money into the delivery kid's hand and grabbed both pizza boxes and brought them inside. Her foot kicked the door closed and Kara deposited the pizza on the counter. She left it there even though her stomach growled again and draped her arms over the back of the couch.

"Hey there. Do you want pizza or round two?"

Pillows moved and toppled off the couch as Lena pushed herself up into an upright position. Her hair was tangled from the couch and twin spots of color covered her cheeks. She blinked owlishly at Kara, taking in the sight of her unruffled girlfriend and the food behind her. 

There was still a pleasant tingle in her legs. Lena curled her toes experimentally, pleased that they responded.

"There's time for round two after you eat," she finally said, not missing the low timbre of her voice. She cleared her throat, turning to look for her abandoned leggings. They had landed by the coffee table, still sitting on it's side. As she leaned to grab them, she glanced back at Kara. "Think you could use your amazing muscles to fix that?"

" _ Oh geeze _ , I'm sorry," Kara grimaced and moved quickly over and righted the coffee table. She looked it over, a little concerned and then sighed, "I  _ didn't _ break it!" That put a smile on her face so she went and grabbed the pizza boxes and brought them over, "So, one and a half of these are mine, right?"

Lena spent another minute hunting for her discarded underwear before giving up and pulling her legging on without them. "Of course, darling." She glanced around for her wine, happy to find it safe in the kitchen.

She made a valiant effort in pretending that her legs didn't feel like jello, but a quick glance at Kara told her it wasn't enough. "Do you want anything to drink?"

"Is that soda I bought the other day still here?" Kara asked, already halfway into a slice of pizza. She looked almost like a retriever with a toy it shouldn't have.

A quick look in the refrigerator produced the pizza and a small, premade salad for Lena. Delicately balancing the two drinks and greens, the ruffled CEO made her way back to the couch. It took her by surprise, how normal the evening felt.

It had been less than a week, and yet having Kara in her life and in her home felt more comforting than she had thought it could. Lena had always been alone, partly due to how she was raised, but now, as an adult, mostly by design. It should feel foreign, to have someone sitting on her pristine couch pulling the cheese off the top of their pizza as they took a bite that was probably too large. But, with Kara… it felt more like coming home.

Lena tucked her feet up under her on the couch, depositing the wine and soda onto the righted coffee table. “You have some sauce on your nose.”

Kara laughed, "Oops," she went cross-eyed trying to look at it then leaned over to Lena with a childlike grin, "why don't you get it for me?!"

With a smile, Lena reached toward Kara with one hand, brushing the offending sauce off the tip of Kara’s nose with her thumb. She pressed it lightly against Kara’s lips, giving a little gasp when Kara darted her tongue out to clean it. “There,” she said softly, brushing her now clean thumb down the edge of Kara’s jaw. “Got it.”

"You're lucky I'm just really hungry for pizza right now," Kara warned but it was a tease and she started in on the second half of the first pizza. After another slice went down Kara wiped the grease off her hand and reached for the tv remote. "Want to watch something?"

The oversized TV blinked to life, and with it a breaking news report, the newscaster already halfway through.

“Released a statement late this morning,” the screen flashed to a recorded clip of a bald man in an expensive suit, and Lena felt all the air get sucked out of the room. The bite of salad in her mouth suddenly tasted like ash, and she forced herself to swallow it.

“Of course, I’m thrilled to be back among the fine people of New York City,” Lex’s voice was strong and confident, and it made her skin crawl. “I’ll be spending my time recuperating at home, catching up with friends and,” he turned to face the camera fully, the same smile curling his features that had appeared in some of Lena’s worst nightmares. “Family.”

Kara had never met Lex. She didn't know Lex but she knew about him and his breakdown, thanks to the news several years ago. Lena had never really talked about him and Kara didn't want to pry, so she didn't ask, but she did know that their quiet relaxing evening just got cut short.

"Lee, are you okay?" Kara asked cautiously. She put her pizza down and turned a little more on the couch to fully face the one Luthor that she did love.

"Change it, please." Lena's eyes were wide and fixed on the screen. It had flashed back to the newscaster, who was now talking about Lex's history. 

She should have known this would happen. Lillian had all but told her it was in the works, but Lena had let herself be distracted by everything else. Between Kara, and the suit, and now that contract she'd signed... she had her hands full, but still. It shouldn't be a shock.

"How could they let him out?" She asked numbly, her eyes fixed on the cold expression of her brother's face on the screen. It lasted only another second before Kara changed it to something else.

Kara was silent, flipping through the channels to try and find something more cheerful. She wasn't sure what to say. Didn't know what kind of comfort Lena needed, if she needed any at all. She wasn't sure if Lena's question needed an answer from her or if it was rhetorical. Kara settled on a rerun of  _ How I Met Your Mother _ .

She sat quietly for another minute, laughing half-heartedly at something Lily said to Robin and then glanced back to her girlfriend. She looked upset. A tentative hand reached for Lena's and Kara gave it what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. She was careful not to squeeze too tight.

"Do...do you want to talk about it?"

Lena gripped Kara's fingers so tight her knuckles were white. "What's there to talk about? My brother tried to kill people and he got off on an insanity plea. Lillian donated thousands to that hospital to get them to take him, and now probably thousands more to get him out." 

Her voice was hollow, and Lena thought she was probably in some type of shock. The world wasn't safe with Lex loose, she knew. It was why she had been willing to testify against him, in the end. She had let herself think that the insanity plea would be enough to hold him, to keep society safe from Lex's maniacal brilliance.

She had been wrong.

"Kara, I don't know what to do." Lena looked pleadingly over at the blonde, even though she knew Kara was as lost as she was. She worried that with his release, Lex would try to take the company back, and with her tenuous grasp on the board... he could succeed, and undo every good thing Lena had tried to do.

"Well…" Kara sighed. She wanted to help. She wanted to help Lena so badly, to tell her that it was going to be alright, that she knew exactly what to do. But she didn't. Kara had no idea what to do or what this would mean for Lena, for the company, for  _ them _ .

"Well, we can't do anything about it right now," Kara settled on and brought Lena's hand up so she could place a gentle kiss on the back of it. She could tell Lena was holding her tightly, but Kara could barely feel it beyond a normal squeeze.

"It's late. Nothing is going to happen until tomorrow. Even then, he  _ just _ got out. There should be...like...some kind of probationary period before he can even try to fight anything. I feel like I remember reading that in a clause somewhere…" Kara trailed off. "You don't have any meetings tomorrow. You'll have time to focus on this and address if you're asked directly by anyone. I can keep the press out if you want or just let in the ones you like. I can move all his old files from the server tomorrow too, but I'll have to go straight to the server room for main access."

Lena nodded along while Kara spoke, hoping that for once, just maybe, Lex would follow the rules and stay on whatever probation he had been assigned. She knew that he wouldn't, just like he wouldn't stay on whatever medications they had given him. She knew that as soon as the cameras looked away, he would revert to being the conniving madman he had been before the institution.

"We'll have to contact Jess in Public Relations," she finally sighed. "And I want every file Lex has touched on lockdown." 

She finally shuffled closer to Kara on the couch, tucking herself into as small of a ball as she could against Kara's side. "I'm sorry, Kara."

"Lena, it's okay. I'm here for you," Kara said and wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in. She placed gentle kisses on top of soft hair and sighed, "It'll be alright."

_____

Late afternoon light filtered in from the balcony behind her while Lena picked meticulously through a contract for L Corp to gain the rights to sole production of a new series of security scanners. The words blurred in front of her over and over and Lena finally sighed, sitting back and tossing the contract onto her desk in a flurry of papers. She gave a delicate rub to her eyebrows, not quite the full scrub she longed to do. 

"Kara?" Lena called to the open glass door. She wouldn't be able to focus on anything for work until she knew for sure that they had all of Lex's pet projects under lock and key. She felt like she could tear the building apart brick by brick to make it happen.

Kara left what she was working on and went into Lena's office quickly. She could already tell by the tone that Lena was tired and maybe even a little anxious. It was best to not keep her waiting.

"Yes, Miss Luthor?"

"I know you're busy today," Lena offered a half smile, apologetic, "But I need you to get down to the servers and handle Lex's files, before..." Before he could do anything with them. The very idea made her cringe.

"Do I...even have clearance to get into the server room? I thought it was only the CEO and the head of the tech department?" Kara asked cautiously. She had never been to that floor before and although she would do any job Lena tasked her with, she also didn't want to accidentally break anything. "If you give me the door code, I think I could manage," Kara said, a little quieter. She looked hopeful, wanting to be useful more than anything and help Lena with this problem.

"It's a little more than a door code," Lena pulled her rarely worn work badge from a drawer, handing it to Kara. It dangled from a cheap retractable cord, waving gently in the air between them. On the back was a picture of Lena (not smiling), and a gold RFID chip.

Once Kara took the card, Lena scribbled down three separate codes, labeling them clearly. "You'll need these two to bypass the vocal recognition for the server," she told Kara, indicating the two series of numbers at the bottom of the pale yellow sticky note. "Don't skip anything, please. Even if it looks unimportant. Lex has a habit of hiding things in obvious places. He thinks it makes him mysterious." Lena rolled her eyes, for a moment remembering Lex as her occasionally goofy, but ultimately caring older brother.

It felt a little overwhelming, but Kara was determined. She nodded, resolutely, and took the badge and the note and held them close, "I'll do all I can." Her eyes hit the clock. It was pretty late in the afternoon already and Kara didn't know how many files there would be to purge.

"You should go home on time today," she said quietly so no one would hear them past the office door, "I don't know how long this will take, but just go home and relax. And…" Kara sighed. The implication was that she would be there as soon as she could. She also wanted to kiss Lena. Another set of words was on her lips, but the blonde swallowed and let them die.

"I'll go take care of this right now, Miss Luthor," Kara hit her with one more small smile and then headed out of the office.

Lena watched Kara walk out of the office and felt the warmth in the room leave with her. What time was on time, in any case? She couldn't leave at five on the dot if there was still work to be done. Eyeing the contract on her desk, Lena sighed heavily and got back to it.

She made it another hour before the words blurred together and she decided to take Kara's advice and leave. The clock glowed a bright 5:05, to her amusement.

The drive home was short, and Lena only gave a cursory greeting to her security team as she passed them in the lobby. The elevator dropped her off with barely a bump, and Lena let herself into the penthouse, focused solely on the idea of wine and a bath.

_____

The two security doors had been easy enough to bypass, at least with Lena's instructions. She still felt like she was somewhere she shouldn't be. A child with her hand caught in the cookie jar. She had been down in the server room, a dark room full of giant brick machines with flashing lights, for almost an hour now. They hummed, the servers, continuous and not at a frequency as soothing as the reactor that sat in Lena's chest. The sound was almost aggressive and Kara was having a difficult time trying to drown it out and focus. Every little noise, every out of the usual  _ beep _ or  _ click _ , had her on edge. She didn't know why. She had permission to be here. 

Kara had checked all the obvious folders and transferred the files from the main server–once she found the right one, as there were about twenty of them–to a flash drive. At least this way the only access point for them would be the drive, which could be destroyed or easily hidden, whichever Lena preferred after she had them. Now it just felt like she was searching for a needle in a haystack. Every other folder, at least to her, appeared to be what it was actually labeled as. She would probably have to check every single one just to make sure Lex hadn't hidden anything somewhere else. L Corp wasn't lacking for information. Kara didn't know how she was supposed to go through it all. 

A half an hour later and Kara thought her eyes might permanently cross forever. Blue eyes squeezed shut, aching from the bright light of the screen. She rubbed her eyelids with her thumb and forefinger, sighing as she did and opened her eyes to keep going. They landed on an arc reactor file. The time-stamp was today. Maybe she had just looked at this one already, or Lena had. It was her pet project after all. Lena's words echoed in her mind so Kara clicked on it to look anyway. No stone unturned, as it were.

Blueprints for the original appeared. At the time it had been conceptualized it had needed to be enormous–the size of an entire building, a big building. It hadn't been built. No investor had found it cost effective, regardless that it would have saved them triple their money in the turn of five years it generated so much natural energy. Perhaps Lena would revisit it now that she could make it smaller? Kara kept scrolling. Suddenly the screen appeared to glitch and she was booted from the folder.

The blonde gave a soft groan and double clicked on it again. Again, the older blueprints for the reactor appeared. Kara began to scroll down the rest of it and–

"Son of a  _ biscuit _ !" 

One finger pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and Kara's brows furrowed. It had booted her again.

She opened it again and scrolled and sure enough it kicked her out.

"Ugh! Come on!" Kara's hands grabbed either side of the screen and suddenly a surge shot through the entire system. It traveled through the lines of each server, popping occasionally as it went, lights flashing. It only took all of about five seconds and then her screen went black.

"Oh no," Kara shook it.

" _ No _ ! No, no, no! Oh god..." Kara pulled back from the computer and looked around the dark room. A couple of the servers were humming louder than before, overheated from the surge. One was even smoking.

" _ Oh god _ ."

She looked down at her hands. She hadn't even felt it . Not even a tingle. If she could do that and not even realize it then what happened if she did it and she was touching Lena?!

The server began to hum again as it rebooted itself and the screen illuminated Kara's panicked face. It seemed to bring her back to attention and Kara settled back in. Chewing her bottom lip between her teeth she refound the arc reactor file and pulled it up. She scrolled slowly, fully expecting it to boot her again, only it didn't. She scrolled down and found blueprints of a smaller arc reactor, half finished. 

They resembled Lena's but weren't quite the same. Kara knew this because she spent a considerable amount of time at night staring at Lena's when she couldn't sleep, or when she had woken up from one of her nightmares. She had memorized it, like a comfort, every detail she could visibly take in. These were different. And there were a lot of them. All half finished or marked as unusable. 

"That's weird..." 

A few minutes and a lot more clicking later she found split designs for a suit. It was bulky and gaudy. About as opposite of Lena's Iron-Maiden as a suit could be. One thing drew her attention more than the aesthetics of it, and that was the big circular hole in the chest plate.

"Where an arc reactor would go..."

The deeper she delved the more confusing she got. Orders for suits. Material shipments. None of them had Lena's signature but all had fairly recent time stamps. It wasn't until she scrolled and saw an invoice with Lillian Luthor's signature on it that things seemed to fall into place. There had been a lot of shipments to and from the older L Corp Industry Harbor Warehouse. Kara knew it as the presumed empty and abandoned weapons warehouse and manufacturing plant.

"Fuck."

Kara saved it all, copied all the data over while her phone was propped between her ear and her shoulder. "Pick up, pick up,  _ pick up..." _ Kara didn't wait for Lena's voicemail to answer before she was dialing again.

"Lena, pick up pick up..."

She ejected the flash drive and closed up the server access again and marched out of the server room at a very hasty pace. Her foot tapped erratically as she waited for the elevator to take her back up to Lena's office floor.

" _ You have reached the voicemail of Lena Luthor, CEO. Please try your call again at– _ " and then Kara listened to the number for her desk.

Kara sighed, "Lena, it's Kara. I found something very bad.  _ Very _ bad. I'll call you again."

She redialed as she got into the elevator. Maybe Lena forgot what time it was and was still in the office. Kara wouldn't put it past her and for once she was hoping her girlfriend did work late instead of listening to her.

" _ You have reached the voicemail of Lena Luthor, CEO. Please try– _ "

"Damnit. Lena, this is really important. Please call me back as soon as you get this! I'm going to try your other line."

Kara dialed it even as she stepped out of the elevator onto their floor. She set a brisk pace past her own desk and found Lena's office locked and dark inside. She had already gone.

" _ You have reached the voicemail of Lena Luthor. Please leave a message at the tone _ ." 

"Lena! Lex has suits.  _ Please _ call me, I'm getting really worried!"

Kara pulled her phone away from her ear to hit redial but the screen cracked in half right as she did and went black.

"Shit!  _ Shit, shit, shit, shit– _ " it turned into a long groan and Kara squeezed her eyes shut. She forced herself to calm down, doing one of the breathing exercises Eliza used to have her do when she was younger.

Gingerly, she picked up her office phone, holding it delicately as she tried to press the numbers she needed without smashing right through the base of the phone. One more time. Just one more time.

" _ You have reached the voicemail– _ " 

Kara hung up and pulled out her planner. She flipped back pager after page until she found the number she had written for the agent who had called to schedule the appointment with Lena. Sam. Surely she could do something? Surely her organization could do something?

Kara dialed the number with as much care as she dialed Lena's and waited with baited breath for

" _ Agent Arias– _ "

"It's Kara, Kara Danvers!" Kara spewed, "Listen, I know you made Lena sign a contract and I know you want me too. Okay, well you can have me, but you have to bring whoever you can and meet me at the L Corp Industry Harbor Warehouse as soon as you can.  _ As soon as you can _ , Sam! I think Lena is in trouble!" And then she hung up, not even waiting for an answer. She already had the phone up to her ear again and was dialing her sister's number.

" _ This is Detective Danvers. _ "

" _ Alex! _ I don't have any time to explain–I broke my phone. Not important. Alex, I need you to get as many officers as you can to go to the old L Corp Industry Harbor Warehouse as soon as possible. Like, literally as soon as you can, Alex. I'll meet you there. Lena is in trouble, I have to go!"

Alex stared at her beeping cell phone before marching her way into the Lieutenants office.

_____

She wasn't sure she'd heard it at first until it came again. The soft, distressed beep from the intercom by the front door. Lena recognized it distantly. The only time she'd heard that alarm was when she had purchased the building and had adequate security measures installed. 

Adequate until now, at least.

For a moment, Lena stood barefoot in her hallway, listening to the quiet beep with her hair dripping wet spots into the soft cotton of her shirt. Then she was moving, slamming into the lab and barking at Hope to get the reassembled Mark 3 moving. The robotic arms started to move, but it felt slow, and Lena could hear the beeping now mingling with the sound of banging on the solid front door. 

The back of the suit was just attaching to her when she heard the door splinter, and then silence. Even the metal arms coiled around her paused, and all Lena could hear was her own breathing and the frantic hum of the arc reactor in her chest. And then…

"Come now, sister. Don't you have a hug for your favorite brother?"

Lex's voice carried from the living room. Lena stood frozen on the platform, legs and back encased in the Mark 3. One robotic arm whirred and picked up the chest plate. Under the noise, Lena heard footfalls down the hallway, approaching the lab.

If only she had spent more time upgrading the deployment process, she could already be in the suit.

She turned, the legs of the suit making the movement slow and loud. Lex's shadow paused outside the lab door. The dangling metal arm before her searched for where to put the chest plate.

The door swung open, and she half expected the hinges to squeak ominously. 

Lex stood in the doorway, looking for all the world like he was just coming home, not breaking and entering. It occurred to her that there was no way Lex was here alone, there wasn’t even a wrinkle in his blue Westwood. Someone else was responsible for reducing her front door to splinters.

“Now, Lena. Is that anyway to greet me after so many years?”

“It’s funny you mention that,” Lena aimed for levity, “This is how I greet everyone who breaks into my home.”

“I wouldn’t have had to, if you had just come to see me.”

“Why would I want to see you, Lex?”

“To apologize, Lena.” Lex moved into the lab, looking around curiously. Taking stock, she realized, when his eyes landed on the arc reactor that beamed through her thin shirt.

She felt the absurd need to cover it, one hand even going so far as to raise toward her chest. 

“I don’t owe you an apology, Lex. You tried to kill people.”

He laughed, the sound hard and harsh in the lab. She flinched, just barely. “Immigrants, Lena. Barely people.”

“Everyone is a person, Lex, no matter where they came from.” Lena bristled, biting back the urge to remind him that she herself was an immigrant. He had never seen her that way, that’s what he always used to tell her. She was here  _ legally _ , she’d been  _ adopted _ , it wasn’t  _ her _ fault she was born in Ireland and not the States. It made her skin crawl.

Lex's lips curled in something between a snarl and a sneer, and he advanced toward her, blue eyes hard. "They aren't people, Lena," he hissed, "they weren't born of this Earth, they aren't _like_ _us_." 

His breath was hot and damp in her face. It took everything in her not to lean back and cringe from him. "That doesn't make it right, Lex." She said carefully, proud that her voice stayed calm even as her heart raced. "No one deserves to die because of where they're born."

A soft laugh ghosted over her cheeks, and then Lex was out of her space, resuming his perusal of her lab. His eyes lit up at Hope, before sliding onto the next thing, the glass encased arc reactor that Kara had given her. "I suppose you would think that," he murmured, dragging his fingertips along the desktop idly, "I did try to change your mind, push you to see things my way. Too bad Emir has such a heavy hand." His fingertips tapped once on the desk before he turned back to her sharply. "Still, I did get something out of it." His gaze bored at her, fixed steadily on the light of the arc reactor.

Her heart dropped, settling somewhere near her stomach. Lena looked at Lex in horror, slowly shaking her head as she made to take a step back. Her foot caught the edge of the platform and she started to slip, only to find herself held fast by a strong grip in her shirt. "Lex," her voice broke on the word, her hands coming up to grip his arm. "How could you?"

She should have known, in retrospect. All signs pointed to Lex - the blueprints in the cave, so strange and yet so achingly familiar. Emir's mysterious investor who only wanted the old Luthor Corp back. Her mother's cryptic warnings. Sam.

Kara.

She had to keep him from Kara. 

Hope lit up on the desk, announcing three missed calls from Miss Kara.

Lex snarled and pulled her tight as she struggled, shouting for whoever was in the hallway to "Get in here and hold her!"

Someone stomped in and grabbed her by her elbows from behind, jerking them back and forcing her chest forward. Lex's eyes focused only on the arc reactor. Lena's body filled with dread.

"Lex," she tried again, pleading. "Don't do this."

He let out a little huff of laughter, pulling the neckline of her shirt down to reach the humming generator. "Oh, little sister. I'm only doing what you've forced me to do." His fingers touched the edge of the ring and her skin burned. "If you had only listened, before… you could have stopped all this."

It felt like Lex dropped a thousand pounds on her chest as he twisted the arc reactor and ripped it out with little consideration to what it would do. She sagged, and the man tasked with holding her let her drop gracelessly. 

"You'll be happy to know," Lex crouched down next to her, his face gray around the edges as Lena gasped for air, "When I wipe out every last alien on this planet, I'll save your pet Asgardian for last."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always for all of the love. It makes us so happy to receive all your kudos and comments!
> 
> Come yell at us on tumblr:
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> happypugstuff


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late in the day update!
> 
> Thank you for all of your comments and kudos. They keep us going (and going and going. You don't even know).

The sharp click of Lex's shoes faded down the hallway. Her own gasps rang sharp in her ears. Less than ten feet away, Hope's gentle light reflected off the glass of Kara's gift. 

Her eyes were so heavy. 

It was so far away.

Lena groaned, pulling herself back onto the donning platform. 

Her chest ached, but a sharp pain was starting to brew just beneath her ribs. Green eyes drifted closed once, then twice…

"Hope."

"Yes, Miss Luthor?"

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, but Lena forced herself to move, even if it was only an inch, toward the desk. "How much power... will the Gen 1 arc reactor produce?"

"Miss Luthor, the Gen 1 cannot generate enough power to sustain the Mark 3."

Lena wanted to laugh. Sometimes she forgot how quickly the AI learned. "Not what I asked, Hope." She stumbled upright, hissing as the sharp pain stabbed deeper and higher. "Can it run the Mark 3 at all?"

"It will generate enough energy to power the Mark 3 for less than an hour."

She tipped into the desk, the metal legs screeching against the floor. "It'll have to do." Her fingers slipped on the glass case and it dropped to the ground, sending shards of glass across the lab. 

Lena sank gratefully next to it, fishing the roughly hewn reactor out of the wreckage. Glass licked at her fingers, but the pain of it was nothing compared to the stabbing in her chest. With almost less care than Lex had taken to remove the reactor, Lena shoved the older model in, wires catching and twisting until the small generator stuttered to life. 

Little by little, the weight on her chest eased and she could breathe a little easier. Lena struggled to her feet, bracing against the metal desk.

"Miss Luthor, you have an incoming call from Agent Arias."

"Put it through."

" _Lena? Are you alright? Your girlfriend called me in a rush, saying you might be in trouble?!_ "

"Lex was here." Lena stood up straight, rolling her shoulders before she turned and crossed back to the donning platform. "He took my arc reactor, I think… I think he's planning another attack."

" _Fuck. Kara was telling me to get people to the uhm, the Industry Harbor Warehouse? He could be taking it there._ "

The Industry Harbor Warehouse. Lex had signed it over to Lillian shortly before he'd been arrested. The last time Lena had been there, it had been empty, stripped of anything that might have been linked to Lex.

"That's exactly where he'll go. I'll meet you there."

" _Lena, if he has the reactor then how are–wait, can the old one even run the suit?!_ "

"For awhile. We'll just have to make sure it's long enough." Lena took a steadying breath, "Hope, finish donning process and set coordinates for the Industry Harbor Warehouse."

" _Okay, okay. I'll get as many agents there as I can. We will be ready for anything. One more thing though, Lena,"_ Sam paused and looked at the updated chart on her screen, " _Kara said she was going to meet us there._ "

"Sam, no. Lex knows what she is, she can't be anywhere near him!" Lena was still talking as the mechanical arms snapped her into the suit, and it took a moment for the call to transfer with Hope into the helmet. "We have to get her out of there!"

" _I'll get there as fast as I can, but I don't have her number, Lena. And I don't think she would listen to me anyway. You be careful! I'm getting ready right now!_ " 

The line went dead as Lena launched herself out of the lab window, headed for the warehouse. "Should I call Miss Kara?" Hope asked.

Lena swallowed down the fear rising in her. "Call her."

The phone rang in her ear only once before it clicked over to voicemail. Lena watched the tops of skyscrapers fly beneath her as she listened to Kara's cheery recorded voice and then the beep. 

" _Hey, It's Kara! Sorry I can't answer right now but please leave a message and I'll get back to you soon!_ "

"I know you won't get this. Just be careful."

_____

Padlock and chain on the gate of the fence that surrounded the warehouse. Yeah, she could probably break that. Kara reached for the lock, looking around tentatively to make sure that no one could see her.

"Alright Kara…" the blonde let out a breath and then yanked on the lock. The metal snapped and the chain fell onto the ground, the lock broken. She looked pleasantly surprised as she slipped inside the gate.

Kara got into the warehouse in a similar fashion, breaking things she probably shouldn't be breaking. It was dark in the back where she had snuck in but she could hear noise from beyond in the larger open warehouse. She just needed to see what Lex and Lillian were up to. Hopefully Alex and Sam would arrive with backup soon. 

She poked her head out from behind some crates and blue eyes widened considerably as they laid upon a group of half assembled metal suits, all like the blueprints she had seen in Lex's file. He would need more arc reactors to power them than just one, if all of the ones in his file had been duds. Kara knew where two were. _Oh no_ …

She hid again as a well dressed man with a burned face walked by the suits with a group, shouting orders.

"Hurry! These need to be finished by the time Mr. Luthor gets back. Make sure the software for the completed suit is uplot. He will want to test run it as soon as possible!"

"Now, as a matter of fact," Lex interrupted, looking up from his inspection of one of the suits. He turned toward Emir, in his hand holding the still dripping arc reactor he had removed from his sister.

"Ah, Mr. Luthor, perfect timing," Emir held out his arms in a triumphant gesture as he moved towards Lex, "the crown jewel at last. May I?" He held out his hand for the reactor so that he could go and place it in the completed suit.

_The reactor! Oh god, Lena_ , Kara grit her teeth and fought the urge to reveal herself. She could take them. She was strong. She couldn't be hurt. She wasn't some helpless bystander. Lex had taken the very thing that was keeping Lena alive away from her. Lena hadn't answered her phone. Lena could be dead already.

The lights in the warehouse flickered and Emir stopped and looked around. "Hm, I'm sorry, Mr. Luthor. We've had to redirect some of the power for the assembly process." Emir said by means to explain the anomaly. 

"I'm sure it's nothing," Lex dismissed with a little wave.

Someone shouted in alarm from behind her, "Mr. Luthor! I found someone!" Hands gripped Kara's elbows and forcibly marched her toward the suits, surprise the only reason they could move her. 

Lex turned to face the newcomers, a broad, absurdly pleased smile spreading across his face. "Ah, there you are! I wasn't expecting you so soon, but I'm delighted to meet your acquaintance, Kara Danvers."

Kara was having none of it. "How _could_ you?!" She jerked her shoulders forward and the force of it broke her arms free of the man behind her. The lights in the warehouse flickered again.

Emir took several distinct steps backwards.

"She's your sister! Tell me where she is! Or I'll–" what would she do? Hurt him? Kill him? Kara had practiced being careful her entire life. Being kind even when people were terrible had been something Eliza had helped instill in her from day one with the Danvers'. Even if he had managed to kill Lena, did Kara have it in her to kill Lex for it?

"I'll…" her hands balled into fists. She felt charged, somehow. The lights began to flicker continuously, until one of the bulbs overhead burst.

“You’ll what?” Lex raised his eyebrows and gestured Emir forward to place the arc reactor. “Yell at me some more? Terrifying.” 

Lex smiled as the arc reactor settled into place and the suit started to wake up. “And to clear the record up, she was my _half_ sister. Half sister, full nuisance.” A step ladder rolled up next to the large suit next to Lex and he put one foot on it, clearly intending to climb inside. “Let me show you what a real Luthor can do.”

" _No_!" Kara's fists clenched tighter and she was about to move forward to do something, to really do something, when she stopped.

Gunfire from outside the warehouse caught her attention, which meant either Alex had arrived with the police or Sam had arrived with government agents. Maybe even both. It meant whatever Lex had planned was over. They were coming to stop him.

The man who had brought Kara forward saw an opportunity and he grabbed for her again. He grabbed for her arms and her hair to pull her back from Lex and when he did, Kara shrieked. Her hands reached backwards blindly and found him to push him off and then she felt it.

She felt warm and flowed through her, circulating within her body till it came out of her fingertips. _Sparks_. It shocked him so badly the man flew backwards and landed into a crate, causing a stack of them to fall over onto the ground. Kara turned around, eyes wide at the man buried under the wooden boxes. And then she looked at her hands. Small blue sparks danced around them, keeping close to the charge of her body.

_Almost as good as the time you told me you could control lightning._

"I can..." She could control lightning. She balled her hands into fists again, small sparks till flying around them, "Lex!" This should get his attention.

The suit closed around Lex with a clang at the same time the ceiling splintered around him. The Mark 3 dropped through the roof, repulsors glowing bright and strong.

“Miss Luthor, the capabilities of the Gen 1 cannot withstand -”

“Not now, Hope!” Lena let the blast go, but Lex rolled away in his oversized abomination of a suit. The blast hit where he had been standing moments before, and Lena let out a string of curses in frustration. 

She touched down gracefully, looking past the HUD to scan the room. Her heart soared as she laid eyes on Kara, and she couldn’t stop the proud grin on her face as she took her in.

Kara’s hair was wild around her, the normally sleek curls untamed. Her hands were alight with lightning, it streaked up her arms and seemed to disappear near her shoulders, only to be found in the bright blue of her eyes. If Lena were anyone else, she would have found the sight terrifying.

Instead, all she felt was relief. 

"Lena!" 

Kara's bright eyes were on the verge of tears, overshadowed only by the enormous smile on her face. "You're okay?!" 

She looked at the suit, astounded and so incredibly relieved that Lena was alright. She briefly wondered how it was even possible when her eyes landed on the dimmer glow of the original arc reactor. Then Kara just filled with worry. Could the old one even keep the suit powered? If the old reactor died then...

" _Lena_!" This time her voice was more urgent and as her worry mounted her focus on the electricity faded. The lightning faded with it and just as she returned to normal a blast struck her and sent her flying.

The explosion left little smoke and Kara's body dented both the floor where she tumbled and the wall where she landed with significant velocity.

Lex lowered his right arm, repulsor in his palm dimming. The one in his left though, was getting brighter, "So rude of you, little sister! You can't even die when you're supposed to!" He released the blast and had to take a step back from the force of it.

"Kara!" Lena shouted, only making it two steps before the second blast from Lex knocked her clear off her feet, the impact of hitting the floor knocking the wind out of her. 

Blearily, she could see someone running up to Kara.

She staggered back to her feet, Hope's analysis on the integrity of the suit running in her peripheral vision. The numbers were daunting, but Lena ignored it, turning back to her brother. She gave her head a shake, like it could clear the numbers in her vision, and launched herself into the air.

The size of that suit? She'd be impressed if it could jump.

"Come on, Lex," she taunted from above him, "Is that the best you can do?"

"I think we both know I'm the smarter one in the family, Lena. I've improved your original suit a hundred fold!" Lex was grinning from inside the hull of the suit. He widened his stance and the boots on the suit hissed. Valves pressed in and he bet his knees and jumped, rockets on the bottom of the boots turning on to propel himself into the air.

Kara groaned and pushed a piece of concrete out of her way as she staggered out to stand away from the crater in the wall her body had created. The blonde rolled her shoulders, shirt ripped in places and saw Alex when she turned her head.

"Alex! It's not safe for you in here! I'm fine. Help Sam and the Agents take out the rest," Kara insisted.

Her attention shot to Lena in the air and Lex launching his monstrosity of a suit up after her. "No you don't..." 

Kara ran and then jumped as hard as she could. It catapulted her in the air to an incredible height. Kara didn't have much time to be shocked by her ability because she was on a crash course for Lex's suit. She held her hands over her head and they began to glow again and she slammed into him.

Kara and Lex crashed into the floor. Electricity from Kara's hands surged into the suit.

Lex's readings skyrocketed and he began to laugh, "Thanks for the boost!" The reactor in the chest plate began to glow as Kara started to climb off. A beam shot out and hit her square in the chest, the force sending her crashing into the far wall. The beam kept firing and Lex turned his body, dragging the beam across his field of vision towards Lena. It cut through beams in the ceiling and parts of the warehouse started to give.

Lena ducked under the beam once, and it cut through a support in the corner of the warehouse. 

Not a long term option, she decided. She was lighter and more agile than Lex, but if she kept weaving, he'd bring the whole building down around their ears. Ultimately, it would solve the problem - Lex would likely be knocked out, if not trapped by debris, - but it would endanger too many. Below, she could see Alex directing what looked like a squad of NYCPD through the building, no doubt to collect whatever evidence they could before it was buried in rubble.

"Hope, did you airdrop the footprint of the building to Sam?"

"Yes, Miss Luthor."

"Great." She'd hear about the invasion of privacy and government property later, she was sure.

The original suit.

Lex improved the original.

She darted higher, closer to the ceiling, and powered a repulsor behind her back. Silently, she hoped Kara wouldn't hit him with anything again. She needed Lex in the air. 

"Is that what you learned in the institution, Lex? To take someone else's designs and write your name at the bottom? But you always were so good at the low road, weren't you? Can't even get your feet off the ground for longer than a second. Shame."

Lex growled and prepared his boosters again, "Too bad for you. Looks like I'm about to meet you on the high road!" The rockets propelled him upward, faster than before with the added accidental boost of Kara's lightning. Lex shot towards her and as he did, a pocket on the suit's shoulder opened to reveal a small missile. He activated it and let it loose, soaring up towards Lena.

The outside of the building had been cleared of Lex's men. Sam didn't get her group to move in until after the beam shot through the ceiling. Something big was definitely going on inside. With the help of the blueprints her squad made it into the warehouse. They began to pick off the last of Lex's group.

Kara felt a sturdy pair of hands pull her up off the floor and start to brush her off.

"You really are indestructible, huh, Danvers?"

It was Sam. 

Kara brushed herself off while she spoke, "You're here to help, right?"

"Of course. SHIELD is clearing the last of Lex's hired help now. We are getting all his files and will have plenty of evidence to show the police to get him and Lillian both arrested...if he even makes it out of this," Sam looked up and nodded towards the two metal suits in the air, flying up towards an open hole in the ceiling.

Kara turned to watch and grew anxious. Even if she jumped Kara didn't think she could get high enough to help Lena now. "She's using the gen one!"

"I know! It's not going to be able to sustain much more..." Sam answered, full of worry herself.

"I know…"

"You wouldn't recognize the high road if it were the only labeled thing on a map, Lex." Lena taunted as she stayed just out of her brother's reach, leading him up and through the hole she'd made in the ceiling earlier. 

Behind her, the missile whistled and connected with her back, throwing her further into the air.

She spiraled out of control briefly, the HUD in front of her eyes lighting up with warnings left right and center. "Gen 1 power down to 40%," Hope reported evenly. 

"Little more, Hope. Deploy flaps, stabilize."

After a moment, arms out wide, she steadied, peeking over her shoulder to see Lex lurching through the air behind him. Even with the mask over his face, she knew he wore a smug grin. He thought he had her.

"Having a hard time keeping up, brother?" She shot higher, charging the repulsor in her hand as she went. She twisted in a tight barrel, letting the charge loose at Lex. 

Below them, the warehouse grew smaller until she could no longer distinguish individual people moving in and out. With any luck, Lex's improvements on the original were less impressive than her own. 

Lex growled and grit his teeth as his machine was too slow to outmaneuver the blast in the air, luckily the momentum of his thrusters kept him from losing any altitude. They pushed him through the blast, shell of the suit singed, and propelled him upward.

"Not as hard as you think!"

He angled his hands down and the two repulsors shot off. It pushed him after Lena faster. Higher and higher they went and the closer Lex got until all he had to do was reach out and grab her. His mechanical hand crunched around the Iron-Maiden's boot, one of its thrusters breaking, leaving Lena with only one.

He yanked her down and readied both of his repulsors for a blast. Lex did not notice the slow crawl of ice over the metal of the suit.

"The higher you are, the harder you'll fall, little sister!" A maniacal laugh accompanied by a similar grin took over him. The repulsors reached full charge and as he was about to release them, they dimmed, covered in ice.

His thrusters sputtered.

"W-what?! What is this?!" He tried to move his arms to wipe away at the ice but his suit was so bulky and slow the ice barely cracked as she tried to move.

Lena smiled viciously, even though her foot screamed in pain from Lex’s grip. “Skipped the icing problem, did you? Some improvement!” 

With only one thruster between them, they reached the peak of their arc and started to descend, faster and faster until all she could see was the red of the HUD and Hope was helpfully counting down seconds to impact. Lex was clinging to her limbs as they plummeted, and Lena could only hope that the warehouse that was rushing back up to meet them was empty. 

They shattered through what was left of the roof, and in a last minute feat of dexterity, Lena rolled to put her brother beneath her. His golem of a suit took the impact, leaving a deep crater in the cement floor. Lena started to push up, only to have Lex tighten his grip, metal fingers digging into the armor of her suit, pushing points of pressure into her skin beneath it. 

His helmet clanged back, and Lena was faced with the full force of his impotent rage. Lex’s face was red and splotchy, his blue eyes so wide she could see the whites all the way around them. He was trying to speak, but the fall seemed to have knocked the wind out of him, something Lena was privately grateful for. 

The warehouse had been cleared of people. The NYCPD had gathered what they needed as well as SHIELD and Emir had already been taken into custody. He was struggling in the back seat of a cop car as Sam shouted something. Everyone's eyes went up to the sky in time to see the two suits crash back down into the warehouse, taking more of the roof with it.

" _Lena_?!" Kara barely heard her own voice over both Sam and Alex yelling for her to stop. She was already running back in, even though the warehouse could collapse at any minute. Kara grabbed some rubble with both hands and slung it out of the way, not taking any time to note just exactly how impossible that should be for other people.

She spotted the green of Lena's suit amidst the settling dust of the impact and found Lex's suit under hers in the next moment. The ceiling groaned and another piece fell and crashed down around them. 

Kara raced over and slid into the little dip of the crater their landing had made, "Lena? _Lena_ , are you okay?" Kara wrapped her arms firmly around the Mark 3 and started to make a move to pull Lena away from Lex's monstrosity beneath her.

The HUD in front of her was dim, and distantly, Hope alerted her to the Gen 1’s capabilities, which sounded very much like she said “life support functions.” Kara pulled her back and Lena gasped sharply, pain stabbing through her chest for the second time that day. 

“Kara - Kara, _wait_.” Lena tried to push her hands against Kara’s arms but it hurt, and they wouldn’t move, and Lex was already pushing himself up, a mad glint in his eye. Beneath his chin, she could see her stolen arc reactor charging.

Somehow, she managed to twist in Kara’s grip, the metal of the suit creaking in protest. Mask still on, the bright light of her eyes was starting to dim, even Hope’s voice still droning sounded farther away. The weight on her chest felt like it was dragging her down and down and she didn’t have time for that. Not right now.

“I need you to shock me,” she ground out, metal fingers tight on Kara. “Everything you have. Now. Please.”

_Everything you have_.

How much did she even have?

Could the Gen 1 even handle it?

Kara shook her head, "No, Lena! I can't, it could hur–it could _kill_ you!" Blue eyes were wide, fearful as she stared at the green and silver mask. Her eyes darted behind Lena when Lex braced both hands of his metal suit onto the ground, preparing. She didn't have any time to decide. He was almost charged and he would blow them sky high and then Lena really would die.

_Everything I have._

Kara put one hand firmly over Lena's arc reactor and her other shot skyward. She didn't know what she was doing, but it felt right. Something deep in her felt like it was calling to something.

_____

Outside the sky was darkening as storm clouds moved in, gathering swiftly over the warehouse.

"What is that?!"

Sam turned to see what the officer was talking about and her eyes turned to the sky. The clouds were circling, spiraling until a peak broke free and began to point down to the warehouse.

"Holy _shit_. Everyone get back!"

_____

  
  


_Then it will find you when you need it._

Something burst through the back wall. 

Kara's hand wrapped around something solid, strapped with leather. The clouds opened up above them and the spiral of clouds gave way to a beam of lightning. It shot straight down into the warehouse and connected with the hammer from all of Lex's blueprints, held firm in Kara's hand in the air. Kara distantly heard something over the loud crackle of lightning. She was screaming.

It went straight through her body and out of her hand pressed down on Lena's chest. The electrical surge went straight to the arc reactor beneath her hand as stray lightning whipped around the room. Kara called all she could, the sleeves of her shirt disintegrating as she channeled the lightning into Lena.

Lena's eyes widened in shock as the hammer flew and slammed into Kara's hand. And then all she could feel was energy, the arc reactor acting as a conduit. The display in front of her lit up bright green, Hope reported impossibly increasing numbers. The weight and pain in her chest lifted, and she could feel the excess lightning flickering over the edges of the suit, trying to find a way in. 

The urge to kiss Kara was almost unbearable, but she just gave her a tight squeeze and stood, slightly unsteady on her one crumpled boot.

Lex was raising his hand, pointing it toward Kara. Before Lena could even process it, she was reacting, surging forward and ripping his arm back, pulling the metal clear off him. She threw it carelessly behind her, where it landed with a loud clang. Lex snarled, upper lip curling, and Lena knew, just knew, that he wouldn't stop until she gave him no choice.

Compartments she had never noticed on his suit began to open, pointing an arsenal at her. She recognized scatter bombs, and even what looked to be an EMP.

The Gen 1 lit up bright and strong at her chest. "Hope, divert all power to the chest, arm to fire."

"Miss Luthor, that will -"

"I know. Just do it."

The light grew brighter until it burst out, flying toward Lex and forcing him deeper into the crater he was starting to climb out of. The energy pulsed, the metal of his suit began to grow hot and Lena couldn't tell if it was Lex that was screaming, or her.

Or both.

She felt it deep within her as Lex crumpled, a solid _crack_ that made her drop to her knees, unable to hold herself up. The Gen 1 sputtered, the HUD flashed red once, and then everything was black.

Kara released the hammer and it dropped straight to the ground and didn't budge. Her arms reached out and caught Lena as she fell and Kara fell back with her. She could see Lex, incapacitated in his half melted suit. She could also see the glass covering Lena's Gen 1 arc reactor was cracked and the light in it had faded. The light in her whole suit had faded.

"Oh no, Lena?!" Kara moved out from under her and looked over the suit. _Oh god._ She opened her hands and splayed them out on the suit's chest and tried to shock her again. Not even so much as a spark.

"What?! _No_!" Kara tore her hands away and looked at them briefly before she tried it again, "Come on! Please," _please, please, please_. Kara squeezed her eyes shut and tried to summon the lightning again, electricity, a spark, anything. Nothing happened. She had done it a moment ago. Why wouldn't it come now?

She looked up at the mask. There was no light in the eyes. A droplet splashed against it, and then another. She'd started crying. Kara wiped her eyes off with her arm and then held the front of the mask with her hand. She pried it off and let it fall to the side. 

Sleeping. She could just be sleeping. Kara had watched her long enough in the middle of the night. It could be the exact same thing. Her eyes drifted down to the cracked reactor. This was her fault. She'd put too much in. She didn't know how to control it.

Kara looked away angrily and her eyes landed Lex. The metal had cooled and from beneath it the Gen 2 reactor glowed brightly from beyond. That was it.

"Hold on, Lena!" 

The blonde scrambled up and slid further down into the crater. The beams of the warehouse groaned and another piece fell. She landed next to Lex's suit and she shoved her hands into the metal and started tearing it apart, pulling chunks out of her way till the reactor was exposed. She took it from his suit as gingerly as she could manage and all the lights in his monstrosity went out. She heard Lex groan as she clumsily climbed back up to Lena. 

Kara laid her out as carefully as she could and looked at the suit. She couldn't get to it how she needed to. She would have to tear the Mark 3 open. Her hands tore at it piece by piece, a bit more carefully than with Lex's suit, but it would still be beyond repair. She got Lena's chest uncovered and she reached for the reactor. She twisted it and pulled the broken Gen 1 from her chest.

"Okay, hold on, Lena. Please. I'm going to fix it..." Kara held the Gen 2 carefully in one hand and held the wires in the other. She carefully reached into the hole in Lena's chest and connected the wires frantically. She felt it click into place and then she screwed it in till the Gen 2 was sitting properly in Lena's chest again. Kara waited with bated breath until she heard the soft hum of the reactor start up and she sighed heavily.

"Okay, here we go..." She got to her knees and then scooped Lena up in the suit, into her arms bridal style. Another piece of the roof crashed down behind them and the entire warehouse groaned. It startled to crumple around them and Kara carried Lena up and out of the crater. 

The warehouse collapsed around them and Sam watched as the whole building came down. The sky had cleared but now it filled with smoke as parts of the warehouse caught on fire. The SHIELD agents had gotten the police to stand back with some hierarchy of order. It cut the NYCPD's jurisdiction off, but Alex hadn't left yet. Sam was standing with her, watching the building.

"There's something coming!"

Agents moved to surround the figure coming out of the smoke from the warehouse. Kara emerged, Lena in her arms, "Hey! Please, we need some help here!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at us on Tumblr. Literally, yell. We need the motivation.
> 
> happypugstuff
> 
> bandwidthlimit


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This year has been absolute shit so I hope that you have found some escape, some happiness, some solace in what we have created here. So, as the end of this hellscape year draws to a close, I would like to bring our fic to a close.  
> It has been an absolute pleasure to ride this wave with all of you. You have kept us going, so from the bottom of our hearts...
> 
> THANK YOU!!!
> 
> Thank you for every kudo, every comment, every click, every read, every REread ;) and most importantly thank you for coming on this journey with us.
> 
> Happpy Holidays my friends!
> 
> with love,
> 
> Happypugstuff & Bandwidthlimit

There was something tickling her nose, but she couldn’t seem to reach it.

The longer she thought about it, the worse it got. She squeezed her eyes shut tight even though she hadn’t opened them and turned her head. The pillow underneath her crinkled, and somewhere in the background a machine gave off a steady, reliable beep. It took a moment for her to realize she was lying prone on scratchy, low quality sheets wrapped over what felt like little more than a solid board.

She pressed down on it and felt the slightest give. So, some cushioning, then. 

Something pricked against the back of her hand and tugged. It made her open her eyes, finally, only to slam them shut again. Overhead, a bright fluorescent light hung above her, and it made her recoil in pain. 

Darkness dropped behind her eyelids, and she realized someone must have turned the light off.

Lena blinked cautiously, trying to get her eyes to adjust to see around the room. 

Next to her stood an IV stand, hung with several bags. She tracked the tubes down to her hand, identifying the prick and pull sensation she had disliked earlier. Behind the IV, an older model heart monitor tracked her heart rate, beeping its steady rhythm out to the room. 

Except… 

She tried to sit up and groaned. It felt like she’d been hit by a train, which she supposed was close to the truth. 

"Hey there, take it easy."

It was Sam's voice. 

She placed a steady hand on Lena's arm, "Take it slow. Don't push yourself. You've been through a lot," Sam gave her arm a little squeeze, "You're in a safe place. Relax."

She let Sam push her gently back into the bed. Almost immediately, her head stopped pounding. Lena swallowed thickly, looking up at Sam’s familiar face. She wanted to make some sort of comment about this becoming a habit, but she didn’t have it in her. There were too many other things that were more important. “Is Kara…? And, what happened with Lex? What -”

"Calm down," Sam started and got up from her chair and grabbed the small cup of water on the nightstand. She handed it to Lena and waited for her to drink some before she sat back down, "Lex has been arrested. He's not going back to the hospital. He's going straight to a psychiatric prison. SHIELD will be monitoring him. Your mother has also been arrested as his accomplice, as well as Emir. They're going to actual prison," Sam started with Lena's family, avoiding the subject of the Asgardian, knowing Lena wouldn't be happy with certain recent developments.

"All of their assets have been seized, pending transfer to you. All their shares in L Corp will belong to you, along with their finances. It's been exposed that they were the ones who kidnapped you. It's all the news has been talking about for three days. SHIELD has cleaned up the warehouse. All the evidence is gone, as far as connecting you to Iron-Maiden. As far as anyone knows, Lex attacked you in your home and you're recovering in the hospital. You're in the SHIELD medical bay."

Lena heaved out a sigh at the idea of having another clean up fall out from Lex on her hands. She let her eyes drift closed as she processed, before she snapped them back open to fix Sam with a firm stare, “And Kara?”

"I'd rather not. You're not going to like it…" Sam started but at Lena's strong glare continued right along with her own sigh, "She's here. She's in... testing."

“Testing,” Lena repeated flatly. She reached across her body and started to pull out the IV, “I swear to God, Sam!”

"Lena!" Sam shot up and grabbed her arms, much stronger than her, at least for now, "Stop it! She agreed to it. She said she would sign if we came to the warehouse. The second we got you here and you were stable she signed the same contract you did. She insisted, since we held up our end. She's been in the lab–"

Lena jerked out of Sam’s grip, ignoring the pounding in her head and the nausea that clawed up her throat. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and felt herself sway. “You promised me  _ time _ , Sam! Not that you’d shove it down her throat as soon as I wasn’t looking!” She started to stand, the unflattering hospital gown fluttering around her before she dropped heavily back onto the poor excuse for a mattress. 

"Sit down! You've been out for three days, you're in no shape to be up and moving," Sam said sternly, exasperated, "and for the record we didn't shove it down her throat. She demanded to sign. Something about integrity. She read through all of it and did it at her own pace. Also,  _ time _ went out the window the second we all thought you were probably dead, okay? So don't be mad at us."

Glaring at Sam through the pain, Lena had to admit the agent was probably right. She could absolutely believe that Kara signed the damn thing out of a sense of misguided duty. She rubbed a hand over her face, then raked it through her tangled hair. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. It was the closest to an apology Sam was likely to get.

“Can I…” Lena tugged her fingers through a tangle in her dark hair, frowning at the effort. “Are there clothes? Or something? I need to see Kara - you aren’t stopping me, Sam - but I’d at least like some pants.”

"Yeah, alright," Sam accepted she was going to have to take Lena to Kara, and she opened up some drawers on a dresser by the foot of the bed. "We've got some new recruit sweats and a logo t-shirt," she said and pulled them out and put them on the nightstand for Lena. She checked another drawer and found a jacket. 

"This too," she held it up and nodded towards the wheelchair in the corner, "You're going to be riding, not walking, but I'll take you."

“Thank you,” Lena leaned over for the pants, trying to pretend like the motion didn’t make her unbearably dizzy. She pulled them on under the hospital gown, shifting them up over her hips without standing. The shirt proved a little harder. She couldn’t quite reach the strings for the gown, and her chest  _ hurt _ around the arc reactor - she didn’t want to think about how the Gen 2 had found its way back to her chest. It was a question for another time - but she finally managed to wriggle into the t-shirt, leaving the gown crumpled on the pillow.

She felt absurdly underdressed next to Sam, given the varying states of put together the agent had seen her in. 

"Put this on, you might get chilly. You've been in a bed for three days," Sam said and handed her the jacket. She unfolded the wheelchair and rolled it over next to the bed. She helped Lena into it carefully.

"Need a pillow? How do you feel?"

“Like I’ve been in bed for three days,” Lena said wryly, adjusting the jacket around her. She knew she must look like a wreck. Her hair was knotted beyond what she could fix with just her fingers and she was probably even paler than normal. “But, I’m okay, I think.” 

She was ready to see Kara. The idea that she’d been unconscious for days while SHIELD used her as a lab rat wasn’t settling well. She needed to see Kara with her own eyes, to know she was safe. 

"Alright," Sam went and opened up the room door and then wheeled her out. It was a long walk and Lena got to see a lot of the SHIELD facility she was being kept in. At a glance, it appeared to be even bigger than L Corp.

They finally reached the laboratory floor, or at least one of them, as far as Lena would be able to tell. Sam swiped her badge and input s code on the door. The metal slid open and Sam pushed the wheelchair inside. She knew instantly that Lena wouldn't like the view.

Beyond was some sort of clear box. Cage, Sam concluded, it was a cage. And Kara was inside of it, sitting on a cot that had a blanket and a pillow. She had some nodes hooked up to her attached to wires that lead outside and into a monitor. The readings on it varied and a group of scientists were running about, performing their tests.

The blonde seemed to be content at least, if a little bored. When she looked up, her eyes squinted for about a second and then widened. The readings on the monitor instantly skyrocketed which caught the lab assistant's attention.

Kara shot up and went to the edge of the class in a rush, "Lena?!"

"Miss Danvers, please, you need to sit and stay calm!" The assistant asked as the monitors started to beep loudly, red flashing on one of the screens.

"I'm so glad you're alright! I was so worried!" Kara shouted, ignoring him and then started to push on the glass. It cracked. That got the attention of the other scientists.

"Miss Danvers!"

"That's eight inches thick, plexi-reinforced glass, how is she–"

Kara pushed again and the whole wall came down in one big shattered chunk. She ripped the nodes off her forehead and arms and then ran over to Lena in the wheelchair, dropped onto her knees in front of it and hugged the woman, careful to be gentle, "I missed you so much. I was so worried!"

Lena sank into the embrace, wrapping her arms as tight as she could around Kara. She could feel the weakness in her limbs, the way gravity seemed to have an extra pull to it. Heart failure would do that, she supposed. “Are you okay?” She asked into Kara’s hair, unwilling to pull away just yet.

Kara smelled like antiseptic, and Lena was willing to bet that since she’d signed that contract they’d had her locked in that plexiglass tank and hadn’t let her out. It filled her with rage, to think of anyone treating Kara like she was something dangerous. Her Kara, who spent more of her time taking care of other people than herself. 

It was infuriating. She’d have something to say about it later, when she could bear to pull herself away from the warmth of Kara’s arms.

"I'm fine, not even a scratch," Kara promised and pulled back just enough to see Lena's face. She was sporting the biggest smile she had in days and her mouth ached because of it, "Don't worry about me. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. They haven't really let me out," Kara shot a glance up at Sam, who looked guilty, and then back to Lena, "how are  _ you _ feeling? Are you okay?" Her hand darted out and pushed some hair behind Lena's ear, her other hand holding onto her firmly, unwilling to let go.

She tipped her head into Kara’s hand, reveling in the other woman’s touch. It was the most at peace she’d felt since Lex’s image had appeared on her television days before. Lena gave a soft smile, “I’m better now,” she said, even though she felt like she could sleep for a year.

“I’m a little fuzzy on all the details. What happened? I remember crashing, but everything after that…”

Kara's face fell a little and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, "Uhm…"

"Miss Danvers, please–"

"She's fine, Walter," Sam said sharply and the scientist shut up and went about busying himself with something else.

Lena didn't remember any of it. "Uhm...well you...you had me uhm," Kara chewed on her lip a little harder, "I think I basically channeled an entire bolt of lightning right into your reactor but I think it was too much because you shot it right back out of you and into Lex and then you collapsed and I had fried the arc because it was cracked and broken and I really didn't mean to. I mean I basically  _ killed _ you," Kara was crying and a scientist shouted something as the electrical supply in the room faltered.

"And I took the Gen 2 out of Lex's suit and, I'm so sorry, but I had to tear the Mark 3 apart to get to the reactor to replace it but I love you and I thought you were dead so I had to try something and then I carried you out and then SHIELD came and they took us here and they got you stable thankfully." Kara took a big breath and looked around the room when the lights started to go off. She shut her eyes and started to breathe to calm down and the normal hum of the room picked back up again.

Lena was quiet for a long moment, her hands still holding on tight to Kara. The more Kara spoke, the more flashes she remembered. An image of Kara flooded with blue lightning flashed in her mind, a hammer, that feeling of being supercharged. 

She shivered, just a little. 

Kara was taking careful, measured breaths in front of her, very clearly employing calming techniques. Lena carefully rubbed her hands up and down Kara’s arms until the blonde finally opened her eyes. “I don’t care about the suit, Kara. You saved me, you saved all of us. Without you, Lex would have won and who knows what he would have inflicted on the world.” Lena spoke firmly, leaving no room for Kara to protest.

She absolutely would not live in a world where Kara blamed herself for something Lena had demanded she do. 

Kara just nodded. She put her head down into Lena's lap and held onto her clothes like the woman would disappear if she let go.

Sam just watched the two of them, a snark little grin on her face but said nothing.

"Agent Arias... please. Miss Danvers needs to return–"

"One more minute, Walter," Sam cut in. It would probably be longer than a minute. She didn't expect Lena to let Kara go back into holding anytime soon, if ever. That was a fight for another day, certainly not right now.

"I'm so glad you're okay…" Kara sighed, finally fully calm again, but made no move to get up. She'd been happy to stay in containment, wanting to be on her best behavior and not cause any trouble but now she didn't know if she would even let herself be pulled away.

Hands tangled in Kara’s hair, Lena craned her neck back to look at Sam. “Sam,” her eyes were pleading, knowing Sam would understand exactly what she was asking for. She couldn’t let Kara go back in there, not now that she had her close again. All she wanted was to go home to her apartment and curl up in her bed with Kara.

Her apartment, with the splintered front door and god knows what other damage Lex had wrought. Lena bit back a groan of dread, her fingers tightening in Kara’s hair. 

"Walter... I'm afraid we're going to have to hit pause," Sam started.

"But Agent Arias, she's–"

"I said  _ pause _ , Walter," Sam said sternly and eyed the scientist down, "Ask her the questions. See for yourself."

The scientist fumbled with his hands, frowning, clearly unhappy about the turn of events. "Miss Danvers, on a scale of one to ten, how in control do you feel?"

"Ten," Kara answered and it sounded a little practiced. She didn't even move.

"On a scale of one to ten, how calm do you feel?"

"Fifteen–"

"Miss Danvers–"

" _ Ten _ ," Kara corrected and pushed her head more into Lena's hands.

"One a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to–"

" _ Walter _ , I think she'll be fine," Sam interrupted and the scientist puffed up like he had been personally assaulted, "Miss Danvers, you can come with us."

"Really?" Kara looked up, eyes hopeful.

"Really," Sam answered and nodded for her to get up, "Let's get Lena back to her room."

"The Director is going to hear about this, Agent Arias!"

"Oh I'm  _ sure _ he will," Sam called but was already wheeling Lena back out, Kara hot on their heels.

"Oh, wait, I'm forgetting something," Kara stopped and held out her hand and waited.

"Oh, Kara, I wouldn't–"

There came a crash from a wall beyond and the scientists started to yell. Immediately after Kara's hands gripped around the hilt of a considerably sized hammer.

"It's mine, Sam, I'm not gonna leave it."

"That's...fair, I suppose. Alright."

Lena eyed it curiously, thinking of the blueprints and data that she had seen in Lex’s files. “How can you carry it?” She asked without thinking, “It’s gravitational pull was off the charts according to the data Sam sent me. It should be impossible to lift.” 

"Oh it is," Sam answered as she pushed Lena down the hall. The hammer swung lightly in Kara's grasp as she walked with it beside them.

"I don't know. It doesn't feel heavy," Kara answered simply. She tried not to think about it too hard. She'd been getting headaches recently when she did. She'd been getting more nightmare memories too...and some that weren't wreathed in fire too.

"She's the only one who can pick it up. We don't know how. We just accept it. I suppose it's simply just because it was made for her," Sam said idly.

Made for her. Lena hummed in consideration, watching Kara carry the mallet like it was nothing. Rationally, she knew Kara was strong, she had seen enough broken office supplies to attest to that, but that hammer was the textbook definition of ‘immovable object.’

She supposed that made Kara the unstoppable force. 

It wasn’t until Sam had her deposited back in the uncomfortable farce of a bed, her IV reattached and Kara close by that she let her thoughts return to what Kara had said about the events following the crash. She was lying on her side, tracking Kara’s movements around the small room with her eyes. It calmed her just to be close to the Asgardian again. It calmed her in ways she hadn’t known she’d needed until they were together.

Kara had spent the last three days thinking she’d killed her. It broke Lena’s heart to think of her in that kind of pain. No wonder she had let them close her up in a box and keep her isolated. She played and replayed Kara’s explanation over in her mind, the heart monitor and the arc reactor giving her elevated heartbeat away. 

Sam had gone to inform her superiors of the change in Kara's location before the scientists could complain about it for her. It left Kara and Lena alone in the room and Kara was taking the time to acquaint herself with the room. It was definitely nicer than the box they had kept her in. Nicer pillows, nicer chair. A tv, which was off but the option to watch it at least was nice. They hadn't given her anything she could potentially affect.

The sound of the monitor caught her attention, beeping faster than before. The blonde gave it a closer look before she went over to Lena, "Hey, are you okay? Do you feel alright?" She took Lena's hand, careful of the IV and also careful to be gentle with her, "Does something hurt? Do I need to go get someone?"

“No, Kara, stay.” Lena turned her hand carefully in Kara’s, giving a squeeze. “I just… did you mean it?” 

"Mean what? That I would go get someone? Of course I would. I don't want you to be in pain or hurting. I'll get you anything," Kara said matter of fact my, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Lena waved the offer away with her free hand, shaking her head. “Not that. Earlier, you… you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

"Oh," Kara said absently and then blushed furiously when she realized, " _ Oh _ ." Her hands worked awkwardly in front of her, wringing together as she chewed her lip. Ultimately she nodded, "Yes. I mean, of course I do. How...how could I not?"

There was a pause.

"Is...is that okay?"

“Is that-” Lena scoffed and reached out, tugging at Kara to bring her closer. It felt like pulling an anchor, but gradually, Kara moved closer to the bed again. “I am probably the most dangerous person you could have fallen in love with, but God, Kara,” she leaned toward the blonde, needing to be close, “I love you with everything left of my heart.”

"You?  _ Dangerous _ ?" Kara laughed a little but it was mostly just to hide the fact that she was about to cry.  _ Again _ . Strong arms wrapped around Lena and Kara was hugging her, maybe even a little uncomfortably tight, but she was incredibly happy. "I love you so much! I'm so happy!"

A soft groan escaped her, and Lena pressed her hand carefully against Kara’s chest. “Darling, that’s - that’s a little tight,” she let out a relieved breath when Kara immediately relaxed her grip, and her fingers curled immediately into Kara’s shirt. “I love you,” she said again, rolling the words around in her mouth. “I wasn’t sure we’d ever get the chance to say it.”

"Honestly I almost told you when we were dancing…" Kara confessed with a blush, "but then I blew the lights. I'm sorry if that ruined the fundraiser. I almost did again the other night...well, last week now I guess... before pizza," she blushed even redder and then decided to shut up. She did so by putting her lips on Lena's and kissed her for the first time since she thought she'd killed her.

The rest of the world didn't matter anymore, Lena decided. Kara's lips were like coming home, and the daunting reality of everything they still had to deal with faded away. When Kara pulled away, Lena crowded close, keeping Kara close enough their breath mingled. "Feel free to tell me whenever you think of it."

"I love you. I love you, I love you,  _ I love you _ !" Kara grinned wide and kissed her again and again and–

" _ Ech hem _ ."

Kara stopped and pulled away, whole face and neck pink as she turned to look at Sam who stood in the doorway with her arms crossed.

"Good news and bad news, ladies. Good news, Kara, you have your freedom again. As long as Lena is here you can be with her. Bad news, Lena, you have to stay for a few more days. They want to monitor you and make sure you're healing properly. You were out for three days so we need you awake here for at least three more days."

"On whose orders?" Lena raised an eyebrow imperiously, or as much as she could with her cheek pressed into Kara's bicep.

"On mine, Miss Luthor." A deep voice spoke from behind Sam, and the agent turned to reveal the stern man from the gala. He stood in a wide spread at ease, clad in dark fatigues. The authority in his presence alone made Lena straighten her back.

"And you are?" She asked, knowing damn well what the answer would be.

"Director J'onn Jones. You've caused quite a headache for us these last few months, Miss Luthor."

"It's an acquired skill," Lena drawled, steadying her gentle sway against Kara. She had so many things she wanted to rail at this man for, and no energy to do so.

Kara stood firm for Lena, keeping her steady. She hadn't met the director yet but she had seen him in passing. 

" _ Lena _ ," Sam looked at the woman in the bed rather firmly, "Director Jones is effectively your boss. Maybe contain the sarcasm."

"Contain is such a funny choice of words," Lena didn't change her tone, leveling the director with an icy stare. "Like you saw fit to contain someone for days in a plastic box?" Her head was starting to pound again, but she'd started to find her stride in this conversation and she'd be damned if she let something as small as physical discomfort keep her from making her point. "Maybe I'd have a little more respect for a man who didn't treat his new recruits," this she said with dripping sarcasm, "as two bit science experiments."

Director Jones stood impassively, his dark eyes giving away nothing. "Anything else, Miss Luthor?"

Lena's smile held no humor, "Actually, yes. Quite a number of things." The heart monitor behind Kara started to beep more rapidly, and despite the anger keeping her upright, she could feel herself grow more pale. She hated that it proved Sam's point of needing to stay a few more days. 

"Lena, it's okay. I agreed. It's not his fault," Kara interrupted while Lena seemed to be trying to find her words. She put a gentle hand on her arm and rubbed it soothingly to try and get her to calm down. 

Sam just crossed her arms, only mildly upset. Of course Lena would pick now while she was half alive in the hospital bed to pick a fight.

"It's not his fault he kept you in a cage like an animal?" Lena's voice rose incredulously. 

"For everyone's protection, including Miss Danvers." Director Jones' calm voice only served to make Lena turn back to him, the movement making her vision spin ever so slightly.

"Forgive me, Director, you have to understand why I don't believe that."

He smiled, white teeth flashing against dark skin. "I'm sure that I do, Miss Luthor, but the facts as they stand are that Miss Danvers is an unknown. She possesses enough power to level a city block without breaking a sweat, and in her state after your... incident, I'm sure you can understand why we felt it necessary to take precautions."

Lena tried to snort, but it was hard when everything was graying at the edges. Her fingers clung to Kara like a vice, and she opened her mouth to launch another argument about how she refused to be kept here against her will when her head nodded forcefully into Kara.

"Lena?" Kara turned and held her carefully, blue eyes full of concern. She pushed her to lay down, holding her hand and turned both to Sam and the director, "I'm sorry. She's just tired."

"We'll go," Sam said and sighed. She turned to Director Jones and nodded, "We will be back to talk later."

Director Jones nodded stoically, bending slightly to talk to Sam as they left the room. The door hissed shut behind them and gradually, their footsteps receded down the hall. On the bed, Lena's pale brow furrowed, a light sheen of sweat breaking out as she stirred restlessly.

Kara sighed and pulled her shoes off then crawled onto the bed, careful not to accidentally press on Lena and then laid down close to her. "Shh, it's okay. They're gone now. I'm not going anywhere. You just rest," Kara let one of her hands run through Lena's hair, gently massaging her scalp while the other rubbed up and down her arm. Kara leaned in and kissed her forehead and then rested her head down next to Lena.

The heart monitor beeped slow and steady as Lena relaxed into unconsciousness. Later, she would be embarrassed for passing out in front of everyone, but for now, snuggled close in against Kara, it didn’t matter.

_____

Maybe she should have put a ski mask on or something, Alex thought deliriously as she tucked herself flat against a wall. 

It had taken her the better part of three days to find the facility she was currently trying to infiltrate. All of her evidence suggested that this was where Kara was being held. She hadn't been able to get close to her sister since her crazy girlfriend plummeted out of the sky in her tin man suit. One second she had been running toward Kara, and the next, Kara was being whisked away in some unmarked suburban that Alex could only assume belonged to the same agency that had been bossing her around for the entire wretched night.

The first day Alex had spent calling Kara's phone on repeat, before she remembered that her sister had broken it. The next day, she had tracked down Agent Arias, and the weird ghost organization she worked for.

Once she'd found that, it hadn't taken her long to locate the shadow facility located outside the city.

Of course it'd be in freakin' Jersey.

Inching her way toward the door she'd scoped out over an hour before, Alex palmed the side arm at her hip. She hoped she wouldn't need it, but all the same, the weight of it was comforting.

"Here we go," she muttered, planting her back against the door and trying it with her hand. Locked, of course, but she'd always been taught to try before you pry. 

Down on one knee, she broke out the lock picking kit she had snagged from evidence. She wriggled it around a little cluelessly (this had never been her best skill), and let out a quiet  _ whoop _ when the door actually swung open.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Now all she had to do was find Kara and get them out of there.

Easy.

Sure.

She walked down the hallway, sticking to the walls until she reached an intersection. Weighing her options, she finally decided to just walk right down the middle like she belonged there. If she ran into anyone, hopefully the air of confidence she was projecting would be enough to avoid any unwanted questions.

Agent Arias was on her way to the labs to smooth things over with the scientists about Kara. She understood they all needed more information and that that would require more testing. At least Kara was cooperative.

Deep in thought, trying to think of how to apologise without actually saying she was sorry, she passed someone in the hall and kept walking. She had turned the corner when she stopped. Sam turned back, brow furrowed.

"Was that…?"

Sam hurried back the way she had come to catch up to the person walking blatantly down the hall like she owned the place and grabbed her shoulder, "Hey, you're that detective from the warehouse, Danvers!"

Shit.

Shit shit shitshith _ shit. _

Of course she would run into the one damn person who actually knew who she was. Why couldn’t it have been the janitor?

Alex pasted a wide grin on her face, “Oh, hey! Fancy meeting you here.”

"This is a top secret high security facility," Sam said flatly, eyes a little narrow but her mouth was pulled into a small grin. Did she think she could just break in and not get noticed? And then her excuse was  _ fancy meeting you here _ . Oh that was cute.

"How did you even get in here?"

“Uh,” Alex’s grin turned rueful, and she bit the inside of her cheek hard. This was not the time to meet a cute girl, she reminded herself. This was saving her sister time. “The door was unlocked.”

"Hm," Sam put her hand on her hip, tilting her head, "Somehow I doubt that. You're Kara's sister aren't you? Did you somehow find, and then break into our facility to find her?"

“Depends, is she here?” 

"I'm under protocol to say that that is classified information," Sam started but then her posture relaxed and she smiled, "but between us, yes. She's here. She's safe, don't worry. She's taking care of Lena right now. I'm... going to assume you know that Lena is Iron-Maiden and that your sister is an alien from another planet?"

Alex deflated in obvious relief, rubbing a hand over the back of her neck. “Yeah,” she sighed, “Kara told me last week. Crazy. Makes sense, though.” She shrugged, eyeing Sam for a moment. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, I just don’t know you. Yet! I mean, I’d like to, but - fuck, this is coming out all wrong. I just want to see my sister.”

"We can go see them in a few hours. They just went down to rest. How about, in the meantime...you and I take a walk? And I'll casually drop our employee benefits and explain the recruiting process?" Sam grinned and nodded down the hallway and started walking, pleased when Alex started to follow her, "You know, since someone with an alien as a sister, and enough skill to find and break into a top secret government facility seems like good agent material. What do you think?" Sam asked, "I might casually slip my number in too."

“Is that part of the benefits package?” Alex laughed, the first one she could remember in the last three days. “Lay it on me. I’m all ears.”

_____

  
  


It had been two weeks since SHIELD had seen fit to release her home, and Lena had spent the majority of her time holed up in the lab, elbow deep in the start of the Mark 4. She had eased herself back into L Corp, part time at Kara’s insistence, averaging six hours a day. Kara fussed at her that it was practically full time, and they would devolve into an argument about Lena’s previous work hours. It was well worn bickering, and Lena welcomed the normalcy.

The press had finally started to die down. On her last look, she hadn’t been front page news for at least two days. The coverage had been surprisingly positive, painting her in a favorable light. It took Lena by surprise. It was probably the first bit of positive press she’d had in years, much less in the shadow of being the only unincarcerated member of her family.

“Miss Luthor, Agent Arias is here for you.”

Lena shot a smile at the AI, even though she couldn’t see it. “Let her in, Hope.” After being released, Lena had reworked the security for the penthouse. She still kept armed officers downstairs, but she had integrated Hope fully into the building. If so much as a window opened without authorization, Hope would know about it. 

In the living room, she heard Hope direct Sam back to the lab.

"Now why is it that every time I come over here now you're elbow deep in robot oil," Sam teased as she came in. She already knew where Lena would be and rarely needed Hope's direction anymore. "How is the new and improved Iron-Maiden coming along? Think we will be seeing any of her soon?"

“Depends on your definition,” Lena dropped the wrench she was holding onto the desk next to her, a greasy hand print on the handle. “Could be a week, if I get to work without interruptions.” She said it with a grin. It had taken the first week of being out of the med bay for them to find even footing again. 

Lena had locked herself in Director Jones’ office for an hour and laid out her variety of complaints. He had listened with no expression until she ran out of steam and then point by point addressed her issues in order. It was more consideration than Lena had expected, and while she disagreed with many of his policies, they forged a grudging respect for each other. 

"And exactly  _ how _ likely is that scenario?" Sam teased and eyed the partially built suit. She came to the conclusion it would look better once it was painted. The deep emerald had always been a good fit for Lena. It just wouldn't be Iron-Maiden without it. "If I recall one very energetic distraction lives here now."

Sam turned away and eyed the desk. Her hand flipped through some blueprints there till she found one that caught her eye.

“She’s always making me take breaks to eat, so I’d hedge your bets for around a month.” Lena reached for a blue shop towel and wiped her hands mostly free of grime. “Is this a social call, or are you here to commandeer my blueprints?”

"Social, I'm sorry. I'll try to stop talking shop with you," Sam grinned and turned from the desk, but she did have one blueprint in her hand, " _ but _ , if you're taking orders, I want this one." She held out the drawing aptly labeled 'Mark 4'. It appeared to be similar to Lena's new Mark 5 design, but the arsenal load was impressive, causing it to be a bit bulkier, at least in planning.

Lena raised a grease streaked eyebrow, “Really? Kara’s been calling it WarMachine.” 

Sam tilted her head and gave the blueprint another look, "I can see it. There's enough weapons planned for this thing for a small army. I thought you didn't do those, Lena," She teased and out the blueprint back down.

"In all seriousness, how are you?"

"I'm okay, I think." Lena leaned her hip against the desk, shrugging. "I'm trying to find a little balance. Kara helps with that."

She eyed the blueprint with something less than affection, "And  _ that _ … think of it as a contingency plan."

"Hmm, a contingency plan I want to be the first to test drive," Sam chuckled and sat down one one of Lena's spinning stools.

"I'll bet Kara helps balance things," Sam said and took a little spin on the stool, pleased when her teasing pulled out the desired reaction from her friend. A very worthy blush.

"Speaking of our local god of thunder...uh, how do you think she would react if I asked her sister out?"

A laugh bubbled up out of the CEO and she tipped her metaphorical hat to Sam. "You and Alex, huh? Good luck." Her own interactions with the older Danvers sister were still stiff. Lena could only hope they would find even footing soon. "Maybe wear rubber soled shoes when you tell her."

"Tell me what?" Kara asked with a curious grin as she stepped into the lab. She noticed Sam immediately stiffen and swivel around.

"How cute you two are,  _ obviously _ ," Sam said and got up from the stool and started backing her way out of the lab, "So, I've got to  _ go _ ! Lena, keep me posted on that contingency! I might need it soon!" Sam winked and then saw herself out.

"Hi," Kara said as she moved over and planted a kiss to Lena's forehead, "You've been in here all day, haven't you?"

Lena smiled sheepishly, "Most of it. I did run to the office this morning."

"Sorry I wasn't there this morning. I did have everything on your desk for you though. I did promise SHIELD I would cooperate as much as I could with them. They only had two probes attached to me today. Apparently needles don't work on me," Kara informed, "I've got dinner on the counter. How far along are you? Think you can take a break?"

"I have time for a break," Lena tucked an arm around Kara's waist, slipping her hand familiarly under Kara's shirt to rest against the warm skin of her side. "I have something I wanted to discuss with you, in any case."

"Oh? Am I in trouble?" Kara teased lightly and walked with in stride Lena out of the lab and out and into the kitchen. Two bags of takeout rested on the counter in two different kinds of bags. It gave away that Kara had stopped at two places on the way instead of just one. The SHIELD days left her hungrier than usual.

"Yes," Lena deadpanned, sliding her hand flat against Kara's back as she pulled her arm free. "You're fired." 

She managed to keep a straight face while Kara gaped at her, reaching into a drawer in the island for the thick packet she had picked up from HR that morning. Pam had given her a knowing look which Lena had met with an icy glare until the office busy body had retreated. Handing the contract over to Kara, she felt a sudden spike of anxiety. What if Kara said no?

"Y-you're joking right?" Kara asked, only glancing at the packet and not taking in the words on the top page. That seemed like a lot of paperwork to fire someone, "Lena?"

At Lena's insistent glance down Kara finally absorbed the words on the page, "Director of Philanthropic Engagement?" Kara flipped through the pagers and realized it was a contract...and it wasn't for an assistant position. It was a promotion. It was also for considerably longer than her first, one year contract. This one was for five. 

"Lena, are you giving me a promotion?"

"If you'll accept it," Lena bit at her lower lip, giving Kara a hopeful look. "It's more of a lateral transfer. Apparently you're grossly overpaid for an assistant, so the salary is the same, but it puts you in charge of every dime that L Corp donates. With my approval, of course."

She edged back toward Kara, stilling Kara's frantic hands on the paper. "More importantly, it allows us a little more freedom. If... if we wanted to be out, together, that's something this position would let us do. You wouldn't be my assistant, anymore - your talents are wasted there, in any case."

It was a lot to take but it didn't take Kara very long to process it. She was grinning like the devil.

"Of course I accept!" Kara beamed and put the contract down before her warm hands were on Lena's cheeks and she was pulling her face in for a kiss. "Thank you, I promise I'll do my best."

Kissing Kara was hard with both of them sporting wide smiles, but Lena did her best all the same. "I know you will," she said when they pulled apart, "You'll be amazing at it, like everything you put your mind to." 

Kara was blushing but she was happy. That much was evident since her smile lit up like the sun. "One thing though...you mentioned," Kara started and rubbed her hands up and down Lena's arms, enjoying the comfort.

"Do  _ you _ want to be out together? I know you really value your privacy and believe it or not I  _ do _ remember all those things you said on my birthday but...I want you to be okay. Is it something you want? It can't just be up to me."

“I don’t want to hide you, Kara.” Lena couldn’t deny the idea of giving up the privacy she had worked so hard to keep set something crawling under her skin, but the idea of keeping Kara hidden away like some sordid secret was worse. She was proud of them, of what they had together, what they had accomplished, even if SHIELD made it impossible to talk about. 

She reached up and pushed an errant curl out of Kara’s face, tucking it gently behind her ear. “What we have is worth more to me than avoiding a few uncomfortable questions.”

Kara smiled and then tried to stifle it to be serious but her lips just broke out into a smile again and she had to shut her eyes. Her hands tentatively let go of Lena and her fingers fumbled. She took measured breaths and Lena would recognize Kara was practicing her new calming technique. She was literally so happy that she needed to calm down.

A few sparks jumped off her thumb and then stopped and Kara opened her eyes. There was a brighter blue in them that was fading. She broke out into a smile again, "I love you. And I would like that  _ very _ much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you, thank you, thank you!
> 
> Please, for the love of god, come yell at us on tumblr:
> 
> bandwidthlimit
> 
> happypugstuff
> 
> (We've got photo edits for this story yo, go look at them there.)
> 
> PS- There's a sequel y'all   
> See you in 2021!

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at us on tumblr:
> 
> Happypugstuff
> 
> bandwidthlimit


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